gothamtrending

HitFix.com is previewing an interview with The Dark Knight Rises star (and Nolan-alum from another spoilerific movie Inception) Joseph Gordon-Levitt tomorrow which briefly addresses “Obsessive online Spoilerage.”  The article particularly references youtubes of Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway as Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle getting into a cab, and Gordon-Levitt  himself walking on a snow-covered street in Pittsburgh, making a big deal about the online furor.  Except there is no actual spoilerage IN those videos, so one is left to wonder what the heck they’re talking about, unless it is just to stir the pot further.

“It’s cool that people are excited about the movie. I’m excited about the movie. And I would be really excited if I weren’t in it. I get why people are interested. But sometimes it can be a little weird because we try really hard to get the details right and make a great experience for the audience. And then when other shots that aren’t, like, how we want to present them, or shots that we wouldn’t want to be presented to the audience sort of get out there, it can be a little, ‘Oh well.’ The truth is I feel like audience members will probably enjoy the movie a lot more if they avoid those types of spoilers.”

The diplomatic answer.

via  HitFix.com.

See related:
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises, Catwoman’s Goggles, and an Offer You Can’t Refuse | Blogcritics
Christian Bale on set video from The Dark Knight Rises #TDKR
First Look video: Joseph Gordon-Levitt on the set of The Dark Knight Rises #TDKR

The story in The Flowers of War, based on Yan Geling’s novel The 13 Women of Nanjing, will see Bale as an American priest who shelters a group of prostitutes and female students in his church during the 1937 wartime atrocity known as “The Rape of Nanking”. The movie was directed by Oscar nominated Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, of films like Raise the Red Lantern, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Curse of the Golden Flower and A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop previously, as well as the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony.

What’s that odd look on your face, Mr. Bale? The first official poster, in Chinese, for Zhang Yimou’s The Flowers of War has been posted over on our friend’s blog RecentMoviePosters. Originally titled Nanjing Heroes or 13 Flowers of Nanjing, this true life tale stars Christian Bale as an American trapped amidst the chaos of battle in 1937 during the Nanking Massacre, when Japan’s army overran China’s capital city. While the color on the rest of the poster is quite alluring, I have no idea why they chose Bale with that facial expression, but it’s a film we’re keeping a close eye on coming up, so I wanted to feature the poster anyway.

China also recently chose The Flowers of War as their country’s Oscar submission this year – must be great!

This is still looking for a US distributor, but will first open in Chinese theaters later this year. Footage was just screened during TIFF, as the film contains about 40% English dialogue, 60% in Mandarin.

via FirstShowing.net.

Bale is, of course, currently in the news as the star of the third and final Dark Knight epic from Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight Rises currently shooting in Los Angeles.

There are some brave men over at Bleeding Cool.  First we have this video tour of the LA set of The Dark Knight Rises.  Our intrepid set spy reports that there Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway and Gary Oldman were all on the set, but he was unable to get their pictures.  His report is confirmed by the set photos that were captured by Just Jared and others.

Then came the illicit video of a scene being filmed.  Do not read on if you do not want to know the spoilers.  Do watch now if you do, because we have a feeling this one may not be up on youtube for very long.

Leaked video from showing Batman and Catwoman in action following the chase and crashing of the HEMTT. Gordon *may* also appear in this shot. Batman walks to the HEMTT and hooks the winch from the batwing to something in the back of the smoking HEMTT while Catwoman watches, dunno how she got there in her stilettos. Batman and Catwoman hug before he gets back in the batwing and lifts off to fly away with whatever was in the back of Bane’s truck. Hope I don’t lose my job for sharing all these videos

Here we go again.  First, a titilating set of new set photos from the Los Angeles location shooting of The Dark Knight Rises.  It’s not Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle this time, it’s Batman and Catwoman.  And yes, those be CAT EARS. The lady is now goggle-free, which does give the rest of the outfit a decided Julie Newmar appearance.  But is this the “full Catwoman costume” as Cinemablend, Total Film and others are reporting?

After the notorious goggle picture, Anne Hathaway said we had only seen 10% of the catsuit.  She’s replaced the goggles with a proper cat mask and we have ears.  Does that really constitute a 90% addition, or is this just another tease?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Gotham Trending thinks it’s likely The Dark Knight Rises may be taking a page from Iron Man and slyly alluding to different costumes before presenting its own new iconic look.

We knew when fans found contemporary beauties inadequate  and had to go back to Hepburn to describe the “style, presence and patrician elegance” of Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle in those last photos from The Dark Knight Rises set, that it was going to be another week where we’d need two lists, one for the Catwoman material and one for the rest of the Batman universe.  We didn’t even figure on DC Comics relaunched Catwoman #1 making good on its promise to restore the sex appeal to our favorite feline.

1. Selina Kyle is “Very Hepburn”
2. Catwoman #1 not apologizing for sexy
3. Anne Hathaway, Selina Kyle/Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises: so very good at being bad (via Sexy Girls Dressed)
4. Batman and Catwoman Cosplay: The Best of Dragon Con
5. DC Reboot Catwoman #1 – Wrong costume is a warning sign to fans but characterization sounds like an improvement

Now, as much as we love Catwoman, if we could focus your attention on just a few minutes on the man in the Bat costume and the world around him, which gives the Catwoman stuff a reason to exist.

1. The cure for TDKR Location Photo Fatigue: Batman!
2. TDK writer Jonathan Nolan’s new series PERSON OF INTEREST premieres tonight on CBS | Interview
3. Bane Mask, Other Batman Items coming up for sale in Movie Memorabilia Auction
4. Best Dark Knight Rises Location Photo Ever: Illegally Parked Badpod
5. Bruce Wayne’s latest hot ride: The Lamborghini Aventador
6. The Dark Knight Rises Set Photos: Bane
7. The Dark Knight Rises Location Photos: Batman/Batsuit #TDKR
8. Batman Merch: Riddler Converse
9. You can’t make any money with Batman: How Batman Almost Never Left the Bat Cave
10. Why I’m passing on Arkham City

Top Searches:
catwoman reboot
tom hardy bane|the dark knight rises bane
see through blouse
selina kyle
the dark knight rises catwoman | anne hathaway catwoman
the dark knight rises
commissioner gordon
riddler converse

Gary Oldman is Commissioner Gordon in The Dark Knight Rises

Batman Begins/The Dark  Knight/The Dark Knight Rises star Gary Oldman (James Gordon) will join Charlize Theron, David Cronenberg and previously announced recipient Tim Rothman as the folks receiving career tributes at this year’s Gotham Independent Film Awards on November 28, 2011

This will be the 21st edition of the awards, which is the first ceremony of awards season.  Nominations for the awards’ seven competitive categories -  Best Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Director, Breakthrough Actor, Best Ensemble Performance, Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You and Audience Award – will be announced October 20th.

New York, NY (September 22, 2011) – The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers, announced today that Actress, Charlize Theron Director, David Cronenberg and Actor, Gary Oldman, will join previously announced honoree Tom Rothman, Chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment, to receive their career tributes at the 21st Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards™ on Monday, November 28th at Cipriani Wall Street, in New York City.

Signaling the official kick-off of the film awards season, the Gotham Independent Film Awards™ is one of the leading awards for independent film. Along with these four tributes, seven competitive awards for Best Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Director, Breakthrough Actor, Best Ensemble Performance, Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You and Audience Award will be announced.

This year’s honorees represents a range of individuals – all veterans well-versed in lower-budget independent films and large-scale studio releases.  In addition, the honorees represent some of the year’s most highly anticipated and critically acclaimed films including: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy from Focus Features (directed by Tomas Alfredson and featuring Gary Oldman); the upcoming Paramount release of Young Adult (directed by Jason Reitman and featuring Charlize Theron) and A Dangerous Method from Sony Pictures Classics (directed by David Cronenberg).

“We are truly honored to pay tribute to four cinematic film luminaries, all of whom have greatly contributed to independent film, and have steadfastly supported the film community in their own individual and unique ways,” said Joana Vicente, Executive Director of the IFP.

Oscar-winner, Charlize Theron, is one of the great actresses of our time. The South African native captivated audiences as female serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster for which she received the Independent Spirit Award and the National Broadcast Film Critics Association as well as winning the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy Award for Best Actress. Theron’s incredible performance as Josey Aimes in North Country garnered her another set of best actress nominations (Golden Globes, SAG, Critics Choice, and Academy) and she also appeared in HBO’s The Life and Death of Peter Sellers opposite Geoffery Rush, for which she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination from the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Emmys.

Moviegoers were first introduced to the seductive charm of Charlize Theron in her feature film debut, 2 Days in the Valley with James Spader. She co-starred alongside Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves in Devil’s Advocate, with Tom Hanks in That Thing You Do and in Jonathan Lynn’s Trial and Error. In addition, Theron starred in Woody Allen’s Celebrity, which she then followed with Mighty Joe Young with Bill Paxton. In 1999, Theron starred in the Oscar nominated The Cider House Rules and in New Line Cinema’s The Astronaut’s Wife with Johnny Depp. Then following in 2000, the much in-demand Theron tackled back-to-back roles in the following movies: Robert Redford’s The Legend of Bagger Vance with Will Smith and Matt Damon, Men of Honor with Robert DeNiro and Cuba Gooding, Jr., John Frankenheimer’s Reindeer Games with Ben Affleck and The Yards co-starring Mark Wahlberg. In 2001, Theron illuminated the screen in the Warner Bros. tearjerker Sweet November alongside Keanu Reeves, as well as in Woody Allen’s Curse of the Jade Scorpion. In the fall of 2002, Theron starred opposite Patrick Swayze in Waking Up in Reno, which she then moved on to star alongside Kevin Bacon in the feature film Trapped, directed by Luis Mandoki.

Next up, Charlize will be starring in Jason Reitman’s Young Adult, written by Diablo Cody and also starring Patton Oswalt, Elizabeth Reaser, and Patrick Wilson.  Recently, Charlize wrapped up filming Prometheus directed by Ridley Scott and is currently filming Snow White and the Huntsman with Kristen Stewart. She was last seen in Guillermo Arriaga’s directorial debut The Burning Plain, co-starring with Kim Basinger, which she also produced.  In addition to producing the Burning Plain through her production company Denver and Delilah, Charlize is developing and executive producing an HBO series called Mind Hunter with director David Lynch.

Director, David Cronenberg’s reputation as an authentic auteur has been firmly established by his uniquely personal body of work which includes Shivers, Rabid, Fast Company, The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash, eXistenz, The Dead Zone, M. Butterfly, Spider, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises and the recent opera version of The Fly. He is a member of the French Legion d’Honneur, and an Officer in the Order of Canada.  In 1999, he was President of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. David is releasing his film, A Dangerous Method, this fall and is in post production on his current project, Cosmopolis.

Earlier this year, at the 2011 Empire Awards, Gary Oldman was honored with the Icon Award for Achievement. An acclaimed presence in motion pictures for 25 years, he is regarded as one of the foremost actors of his generation. Mr. Oldman is known to millions throughout the world for playing Sirius Black (Harry Potter’s godfather), Commissioner Jim Gordon (Batman/Bruce Wayne’s crime-fighting partner), Dracula, Beethoven, Pontius Pilate, Lee Harvey Oswald, Joe Orton, and Sid Vicious, to name just a few of his iconic characterizations.

Over the past 18 years, the U.K. native has appeared in 11 movies that have opened #1 at the box office. As part of the two most successful franchises in movie history, he has appeared in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell, and David Yates, respectively; and Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Mr. Oldman’s acting career began in 1979, and for several years he worked exclusively in the theatre; from 1985 through 1989, he alternated film work with stage work at London’s Royal Court Theatre. Among his early telefilms were Mike Leigh’s Meantime and the late Alan Clarke’s The Firm.

His features include Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy; Stephen Frears’ Prick Up Your Ears; Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead; Phil Joanou’s State of Grace; Oliver Stone’s JFK; Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Peter Medak’s Romeo is Bleeding; Tony Scott’s True Romance; Bernard Rose’s Immortal Beloved; Luc Besson’s The Professional (a.k.a. Leon) and The Fifth Element; Wolfgang Petersen’s Air Force One; the late Marc Rocco’s Murder in the First; Roger Young’s telefilm Jesus; Ridley Scott’s Hannibal; and Albert and Allen Hughes’ The Book of Eli.

With Douglas Urbanski, Mr. Oldman produced the feature Nil by Mouth. The film marked his screenwriting and directing debut, and was selected to world premiere as the opening-night film of the 1997 [50th Anniversary of the] Cannes International Film Festival, at which the film’s leading lady Kathy Burke won for Best Actress. Subsequent honors for Nil by Mouth included the prestigious Channel Four Director’s Prize, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival; six British Independent Film Award (BIFA) nominations, and three wins including for Ms. Burke and her fellow actors Ray Winstone and Laila Morse; the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, as well as BAFTA’s Alexander Korda Award for the Outstanding British Film of the Year, the latter shared by Mr. Oldman and Mr. Urbanski.

The team’s subsequent productions have included Rod Lurie’s The Contender, starring Joan Allen and Jeff Bridges. The film received two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, and three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, including one for Best Supporting Actor (Mr. Oldman). Additionally, the ensemble of The Contender and the writer/director were honored with the Broadcast Film Critics Association’s Alan J. Pakula Award.

Next up for Mr. Oldman will be Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, opening on December 9th; John Hillcoat’s The Wettest County; and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, opening in 2012.

This year’s Gotham Awards tribute recipients join a prestigious group of previous honorees including: James Schamus, Bob & Harvey Weinstein, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sheila Nevins, David Linde, Jonathan Sehring and film critic Roger Ebert; actors Robert Duvall, Stanley Tucci, Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem, Pénelope Cruz, Hilary Swank and Kate Winslet; filmmakers Darren Aronofsky, Mira Nair, Gus Van Sant, Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese.

Nominees for the 21st Anniversary Gotham Independent Film Awards™ will be announced on October 20th and winners will be honored at a star-studded ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on November 28th.

The Premier Sponsors of the 21st Annual Gotham Awards™ are Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and The New York Times. The Presenting Sponsor is Euphoria Calvin Klein and Calvin Klein Collection, with Official Sponsors Heineken USA, Russian Standard Vodka and Andaz Wall Street as well.  Additionally, the awards will be promoted nationally in an eight-page special advertising section in The New York Times on November 18th, 2011.

About Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP)
The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) is one of the nation’s oldest and largest not-for-profit advocacy organizations for independent filmmakers.  Since its debut at the 1979 New York Film Festival, IFP has supported the production of over 7,000 films and offered resources to more than 20,000 filmmakers, providing an opportunity for many diverse voices to be heard. IFP believes that independent films enrich the universal language of cinema, seeding the global culture with new ideas, kindling awareness, and fostering activism. The organization has championed early work by pioneering, independent filmmakers, including Charles Burnett, Edward Burns, Jim Jarmusch, Barbara Kopple, Michael Moore, Mira Nair and Kevin Smith.

IFP represents a network of 10,000 filmmakers in New York City and around the world. Through its workshops, seminars, conferences, mentorships and Filmmaker Magazine, IFP schools its members in the art, technology and business of independent filmmaking.  The year-round program includes an Independent Film Week, The Gotham Awards, Filmmaking Labs and Seminars, and a range of programs to promote racial, ethnic, religious, ideological, gender and sexual diversity. IFP, often in collaboration with other cultural institutions, builds audiences by hosting premieres and special screenings.  The IFP fosters the development of 300 feature and documentary films each year. Recently, the organization licensed the popular Festival Genius software platform through which IFP now reaches over 200,000 film fans worldwide.

For more information: www.ifp.org
About the Gotham Independent Film Awards™
The Gotham Independent Film Awards, selected by distinguished juries and presented in New York City, the home of independent film, are the first honors of the film awards season. This public showcase honors the filmmaking community, expands the audience for independent films, and supports the work that IFP does behind the scenes throughout the year to bring such films to fruition.

Atlas Entertainment, the company backed by The Dark Knight producer Charles Roven, just recently made moves into the independent film arena with the dramatic dark comedy Revenge for Jolly, which will feature Elijah Wood, Kristen Wiig and many more. Now Roven and producer/Atlas executive Alex Gartner are working on yet another project as Deadline reports the producing duo have optioned Langley High, a forthcoming graphic novel from J.C. Spink and Christoper Cosmos from the management and production company Benderspink. Plot details on what seems a young adult spy thriller can be found below.

The story follows a student from Langley High, located 1.7 miles from CIA headquarters (I’m not sure why the precise distance is mentioned), whose father is captured in Russia and thus disavowed as a CIA agent. The student is then forced to team with an undercover CIA agent teacher from the high school and goes on a mission of revenge. Though Roven has big franchise under his belt that include Christopher Nolan’s lauded Batman series and Zack Snyder’s forthcoming take on Man of Steel, Gartner has had successes of his own with Get Smart and The Bank Job. Sounds like this will be geared towards teens, but if it can stay away from turning out like Abduction starring Taylor Lautner, then it has hope to turn into something decent.

via FirstShowing.net.

According to Superhero Stuff, today is Barbara Gordon’s official birthday!

While the rest of the blogosphere wishes her a happy birthday, we thought we would explore “The Curse of Batgirl” just to put a different spin on things.

Commissioner Gordon’s daughter Barbara came onto the scene as Batgirl, and became known to millions in the third and final season of the TV show in the person of Yvonne Craig.  Some say this began the curse by which the appearance of Batgirl signals a Batman franchise has exhausted its formula and its demise is soon to follow.  While the 60s series did fail shortly after Batgirl’s arrival, the fault almost certainly lies in the show’s popularity.  All the stars of the day wanted to appear as a “Special Guest Villain” limiting the fan favorites: Burgess Meredith’s Penguin, Caesar Romero’s Joker, and Julie Newmar’s Catwoman.

Her addition to Batman the Animated Series also marked a definite shift in the show’s look and tone, and not a change for the better.  While later seasons and the barely-watchable Batman Beyond found its audience among the younger set, the triumph of the original Dini-Timm series was a memory.  Barbara herself was described as “A power puff girl” and in the spirit of the old Filmation cartoon and the 60s TV show, she would be the one to spring any trap or jump to the wrong conclusion solving any problem in the course of an investigation.

Breakout

She occasionally hinted at a romantic interest in Bruce, which was downright creepy considering the extreme youth of her portrayal and the presence of Dick Grayson in the series.  Bruce naturally never encouraged it, which made her later allusions to an imagined chemistry in Batman Beyond seem deluded and bitter.  It is a pathetic end for such a character, but Beyond consistently portrayed that core lack of respect for the first generation characters, part of its great flaw and the reason it is dismissed by fans who aren’t stuck in that adolescent piss-on-the-old-stuff mentality.

The less said of Barbara Wilson, Alfred’s niece and the Batgirl of Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin, the better.  All sentient beings know it was Joel Schumacher who was the true death of the franchise.  Alicia Silverstone’s Batgirl was merely one of the symptoms, not the cause.  Yet the inclusion of Batgirl certainly holds as a sign that things are not well.

But Batgirl is only half of the Barbara Gordon story.  As comic fans knew, and a television audience discovered in 2002′s Birds of Prey, Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl is shot by the Joker and confined to a wheelchair.  She continues her crimefighting as the super-hacker called Oracle.  In comics she was part of a team called the Birds of Prey with two other crimefighters: The Huntress and Black Canary.  This team was brought to television in 2002, replacing the comics version of Huntress with her original incarnation: Helena Kyle/Wayne the daughter of Batman and Catwoman.

Breakout:

The show quickly bombed but the fault lies in poor scripts, a depressing tone, and a decided bait and switch in the promotional materials.  The WB ads focused on Batman and Catwoman’s romance, and those attracted by that ad would be disappointed to learn Catwoman was dead, Batman would never appear and that he would be dismissed in the general “down with men” tone of the show.

So once again, while Barbara is present, this time played by the lovely Dina Meyer, we can hardly lay the failure at her door.

The Birds of Prey in comics has been a long-running hit, the only success DC has found in a female-centric comic.  That is certainly the work of writer Gail Simone.   Simone continues to write Barbara Gordon in “The New 52″  the relaunched DC Comics universe where all recent history has been erased and all stories and characters “rebooted.”   The shooting, the wheelchair and “Oracle” are gone, but Barbara Gordon remains, Batgirl once again.

Happy Birthday Barbara!

*While the Barbara Gordon Batgirl appeared in other animated incarnations like the 1966 Filmation cartoons and 2004′s “The Batman,” their success was never on par with the other shows and movies discussed, so the question of a ‘curse’ was never raised.

Arkham City sequel to the popular Batman: Arkham Asylum  from Warner Bros and Rocksteady games  will be delayed for the PC platform, but retailers are still pushing the pre-order perks: skins offering alternate Batman and Robin costumes.

Like Ubisoft and Driver: San Francisco, the PC version of Batman: Arkham City has been delayed, Warner Bros. today announced.

Rather than be released on October 18 alongside the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game, Arkham City on PC will instead be out in November. No exact date was attached to that version, which is sure to be frustrating to fans. Keep in mind there was a similar gap with Arkham Asylum; consoles got the game on August 25, 2009, but it wasn’t until September 15 that it came out on PC.

In better news, the various retailer exclusives that can only be gotten by pre-ordering the game at different stores will later be made available to all.

“The skins that are divvied out at the moment across various retailers and territories… the wording for all of those is if you pre-order here or here, you’re getting early access,” a Rocksteady representative told Shacknews. “We still have more details to come, but the intention is that, for example, if you’re red hot on Robin, you pre-order it at Best Buy, you’re gonna get early access to it.”

Warner Bros. did something very similar with Mortal Kombat earlier this year — you could get different costumes and fatalities depending upon where you pre-ordered or purchased the game. After a period of exclusivity, these were all sold together in a bundle for $4.99 — but not before an eBay market emerged for certain costumes that cost nearly $100.

While the practice of selling this sort of content to gamers might upset some people, at least we’re being told about it before people end up wasting unnecessary amounts of money to ensure they get the Sinestro Corps and Animated Series skins.

via Batman Fans Will Have to Wait Longer for Arkham City on PC.

The original game, Batman: Arkham Asylum is soon to be released for the Macintosh:  October 13

See related:
Batman: Arkham Asylum for Mac allays disappointment over Arkham City
Why I’m passing on Arkham City

Maybe this is a spoiler for the game, I don’t know, but DC is releasing three more Batman: Arkham City action figures later this year, and one of them features the game’s hero looking a lot more Bruce Wayne than Dark Knight.

Joining the two figures revealed earlier this year, these three —Bruce Wayne, Robin and Harley Quinn—will go on sale in December.

Robin looks less cool the more we see of him, and I can live without Quinn, but I really like that Bruce Wayne. Especially since it’s one of the few times this series has had much of anything to do with the other half of Batman’s persona.

via See Arkham City’s Batman Without his Mask On.

See Related:
Why I’m passing on Arkham City

Gotham City Impostors is a first person shooter which places gamers in the role of a vigilante (that’s not Batman) trying to end crime in Gotham – or as a criminal trying to profit as much as possible. The ESRB has given some incredibly descriptive reasons for the T-Rating, including a whole lot of sexy action time:

Some female characters are depicted in form-fitting outfits and lingerie that reveal moderate amounts of cleavage; a “sensual” voice option is also available in the customization menu (e.g., “I hope you bats like it rough.”)

Based on the concept of vigilante justice, it has the makings of a very serious game, but don’t be fooled… it won’t be.

The game includes character profile phrases such as “Cuts the cheese,” “Holding down the fart,” and “I peed on it. It’s mine”; and one comical sequence depicts a baby vomiting onto a refrigerator.

Along with the sexy/corny one-liners, Gotham City Impostors also features blood splatter, violence, and even cursing, although most of the really bad words will be censored through audible bleeps. One cut-scene features a character flipping the bird, although it’s partially obscured.

It looks like Monolith is trying to push the T-rating barrier as far as it will go for this off-shoot entry into the Gotham lore. The concept of team-based multiplayer is always intriguing but we’ll have to wait a little bit longer to tell if this is just a cash-out of the Batman: Arkham series.

There is no release date yet but Gotham City Impostors is scheduled to be released on PlayStation 3, Xbox, and PC as a downloadable title.

via Piki Geek.

The Dark Knight/The Dark Knight Rises Jonathan Nolan is overshadowing JJ Abrams in some circles regarding tonight’s premiere of the duo’s new series Person of Interest premiering tonight on CBS

The reason?  The crime thriller about presumed dead, former-CIA agent Reese (Jim Caviezel), who teams up with a mysterious billionaire vigilante, of course.  Finch (Michael Emerson), who wants Reese to help prevent violent crimes by using their own brand of vigilante justice. While Finch is a software genius who invented a program that uses pattern recognition to identify people about to be involved in violent crimes, he does not have the ability or skills necessary to solve the crimes before they happen. But, it is Reese’s actions that draw the attention of the NYPD, and most specifically Detective Carter (Taraji P. Henson), who becomes curious about the mystery of it all.

During the CBS portion of the TCA Press Tour, show creator/executive producer/writer Jonathan Nolan (The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel) talked about his first time doing television, the process of developing an ongoing idea for television, as opposed to a finite story for a movie, what intrigues him about the way cameras provide surveillance of our every day lives, and why J.J. Abrams was the perfect person to produce this series. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

Question: What was your process for developing an idea that can be applied to different plots every week, as opposed to a finite story for a movie?

JONATHAN NOLAN: Well, I didn’t set out to create a show that was this type of show or that type of show. We really started with the idea, and the idea seemed to suggest a case-of-the-week structure. I’ve always loved shows that combine both approaches — that have a mythology and a set of characters, whose stories develop and change, and where the relationships evolve and fracture. But, I grew up watching shows likeMagnum, P.I. and The Equalizer, and I loved them. They had a case-of-the-week structure that was natural to them. With this, we started with the idea of irrelevant information falling out of some part of the national security apparatus that would simply go unheard, unless someone was listening for it, and that seemed to lend itself really well to a case-of-the-week structure. Television is very different than working on film. With films, you get to develop a set of characters, and then, at the end of the film, you have to throw them away. I’ve been lucky enough to work on a franchise set of films, where we continue to go back to those characters. For me, the attraction of TV is that you continue to get to tell those stories and refine those characters. The other thing is that TV, in the last 10 or 15 years, got really, really, really good. There is some fantastic drama on TV, so I was hoping to swim in those waters.

Why do you think the interest in this show is so high?

NOLAN: I think our kick-ass cast is a big part of that. I think we have the best cast on TV, and we’re really excited to share that with audiences. I don’t really know. It’s very gratifying to hear that, of course. It’s always gratifying to hear that people are excited by something that you’ve been excited to make. I think we had a great experience making the pilot, and we’re having a great experience right now, making the next episodes, and I think that comes across. We’re really excited to get it out to that big CBS audience, to see what they think.

What is the appeal of this story and these characters?

NOLAN: I don’t know. I love crime procedurals. I always have. I love cop shows. But, I was more interested in writing something that was a little more dangerous. There have definitely been shows like this. I’ve just always been more drawn to characters who were on the periphery, or who had an arm’s-length relationship with law enforcement. That suggests a natural drama to it. I think Americans have always enjoyed these kinds of stories, but I haven’t seen so many of them on TV lately.

How did Jim Caviezel come to this show?

NOLAN: I first got excited about Jim when I saw a film he made with Terrence Malick, 13 years ago, called The Thin Red Line, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. His performance in it is just unbelievable, and he’s done some amazing roles since. When we heard that he might be interested, I was just amazed and thrilled to be working with him.

Is there any kind of through-line with this show and elements from The Dark Knight, where you had Bruce Wayne/Batman setting up that vast surveillance network in Gotham City? What is so interesting about that?

NOLAN: I’ve just been fascinated by it, since I was a kid. That was a small feature of The Dark Knight. It was part of a storyline that ran in the comic books, when they examined Batman and the lengths to which he would go, and there are some connections there. I’ve always been drawn to those stories and drawn to that aspect of Batman. I was a kid in England, in the 1970’s, and cameras started going up everywhere. In fact, at that point, there were already a lot of cameras up in London. It was during the Troubles and the IRA attacks in and around the UK and Ireland, so the response was to put up cameras everywhere. And then, when I moved to the States, when I was 11 or 12 years old in Chicago, there weren’t cameras everywhere, but 20 years later, they started popping up. After 9/11, you started seeing cameras everywhere. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of a surveillance state. Who’s watching? What are they doing with that information? I felt like it was a really rich story to tap. I have a lot of questions and ideas about it, that I think will give us some really fertile ground for storytelling.

Are you using any actual surveillance cameras around the city to film this?

NOLAN: One of the ideas behind this was that the look of the show should help remind the audience of the concept of the show. You want to be feeling a little bit like you are peering through layers, spying on people, or that our cameras were spying on our actors. Actually, this is the first project that I’ve worked on that hasn’t been shot on film. My brother is a huge believer in film, and probably will always remain an advocate of shooting on film. Television went digital a couple years ago, almost exclusively, so for me this was a really cool opportunity. I said, “If we’re going to shoot on digital, we’re going to embrace it and we’re going to find radical new ways to take advantage of the fact that you can now find cameras on virtually anything, and that you can shrink cameras down to infinitesimally small size. I don’t want to reveal too many ways about how the show is made, but the prevalence of cameras in this city and elsewhere gives us some interesting production techniques. I always love it best when you have a project where there is this commingling of the subject matter and the way in which you’re recording that subject matter. It’s been great fun, in that regard.

How much will you delve into the machinery behind the numbers?

NOLAN: Following the J.J. [Abrams] rules, we’ll do it one piece at a time. But, because I’m so interested in the machine, its inception, and how Michael’s character put it together and the backstory of that, we’re pushing ahead and exploring a little bit more of that. It gets to some of the questions of the show that I’m most fascinated by, which is the case with everything I work on. It’s set in a real world. It’s New York City. It’s right now. But, you imagine there’s something just a little more interesting and a little bit secretive happening underneath it. We explore the way in which technology has started to become odd and the way all of this information is swirling around. The hardware is very much in place. Everyone has a device in their pocket, which the police now use more than anything else to determine what happened when something goes wrong. It’s your phone. It’s a live microphone for the government, should they choose to turn it on. It’s a location tracker. All this information is out there. We’re at this very odd moment, standing on the precipice of seeing what happens when you start harnessing all that information, which is why it’s not really a science fiction show. It’s more science fact. We really are planning on exploring that a little bit, but of course, not to the exclusion of kick-ass explosions and amazing, soulful relationships and character moments.

via Collider.

Los Angeles is very different from Pittsburgh.  In Pittsburgh, snow isn’t unusual, a hollywood movie is.  In LA, they’re as excited about the snow as they are about previewing a stunt from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises

A shot from the upcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. A truck crashed from an upper level road to a lower level road. This shot took several days of onsite setup to create. The crew turned Los Angeles in September to Gotham in winter. Was awesome to see snow in LA.

The Dark Knight Rises starring Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, et al comes out in July 2012 from Warner Bros.

Why is Joker merch so popular?  We have to assume it’s becauase everyone is afraid not to like it.  Or it’s the hair.  Looking at this shirt, it’s the hair.

Thanks to The Daily What for not letting this gem of a Dark Knight shirt, or actually a Joker shirt, pass unnoticed.

Joker Tee of the Day: DracoImagem‘s aptly-named typographical Joker tee “A Type of Joke,” should put a smile on your face.

Or on your shirt, I suppose. Why so serious?

Last week’s pictures from the Los Angeles location shooting of The Dark Knight Rises started the Internet buzzing with multiple shots of Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne and Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle in their day clothes.  ”Classy” “Elegant” and even “Patrician” with regards to Hathaway, terms that have been absent regarding Selina and Catwoman for far too long.

Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises "Very Hepburn"

Overheard on the social networks about the Anne Hathaway photos:

Very Hepburn! The hat. The dress. The presence! So elegant.

Twitter

When asked if they meant Audrey Hepburn checking out the jewels in Tiffany’s window at Breakfast at Tiffanys, which is certainly apt for Catwoman, the tweeter said no, Katherine Hepburn, the socialite heiress in The Philadelphia Story.  That’s apt too.  But we’re pretty sure Katherine Hepburn also played a socialite that had a pet leopard.  That might suit Catwoman better.

See related:
Location Photos from The Dark Knight Rises: Hathaway/Selina turning heads
A Look Back at Anne Hathaway’s Oscar Looks, the epitome of class, elegance and glamor