Movie Minesweeper - The Drawing Pins Edition

- Stan Bush may not be on the Transformers soundtrack, but Transformers are on his new album.

- Codemonkeys might be a nice stopgap until Scott Pilgrim gets off of the ground.

- Principal photography on Iron Man is over. And it seems like the Hilary Swank cameo rumours are true.

- The Jordanian animation outfit Rubicon is going into production on a new Pink Panther TV series. This time, the approach is a Muppet Babies come Tiny Toons one with the Panther and his 'pals' rendered as kids. As part of the deal, Rubicon get to license MGM properties in the Middle East.

- Righteous Kill - the De Niro/Pacino team-up movie - is to be distributed by Overture Films in the North American territories. And it also seems that 50 Cent is joining the cast. Has anybody got Russell Gerwitz' script for this one? I've been told it's a real winner.

- Shia LaBoeuf is reteaming with his Disturbia director D J Caruso on Eagle Eye. From that title alone it sounds like the plot could be virtually identical, but apparently not. The original premise comes from Steven Spielberg, apparently. Here's Variety's summation: [LaBeouf will play] a young slacker whose overachieving twin brother has died mysteriously. When the young man returns home, both he and a single mother find they have been framed as terrorists. Forced to become members of a cell that has plans to carry out a political assassination, they must work together to extricate themselves. Not only does this put Caruso out of the running for the Wolverine gig, it might mean LaBeouf won't be taking the lead in Death and Me after all...

- Former porn auteur Gregory Dark has wrapped Little Fish, Strange Pond a curious-sounding serial killer comedy with Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Liza Weil and Zach Galifinakas.

- Tom Cruise's links to Scientology (to put it mildly) have led to the German government prohibiting the filming of Valkyrie at any military locations. Paula Wagner has gone on the record saying "Aside from his obvious admiration of the man he is portraying, Mr. Cruise's personal beliefs have absolutely no bearing on the movie's plot, themes or content". Nice to know he admires a Nazi general so much. Ahem.
- Chimps in Spa -sorry, Space Chimps - is to be advertised via stickers on 100 million bananas, pineapples and salad packages.

- Gerard Butler, Idris Elba, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton and Ludacris have all signed up to appear in Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla. Poor souls.

- Ian Shorr's Exempt spec script has a very interesting premise: a problem kid sent to a private school falls in with a bunch of 'diplobrats', foreign kids with diplomatic immunity from the law. No wonder Benderspink are putting it into production. Another year at these two colleges and I'll probably have seen everything that could possibly happen in this film, but it certainly does make for an interesting milieu.

- M.I.A fantasy film Neverwas is to crawl out straight to DVD in July.

- A YouTube clip promoting the next six months or so of Focus Features releases has popped up. All manner of interesting stuff gets plugged, not least of which is David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises but least of which is Atonement. I'd recommend you check the full clip out.

- Gary Oldman might quit acting. Perhaps. One day.

- You can see the Tumb... er, Batmobile. In action. The video is called Batman for Mancow.

- Queen Latifah and Adam Shankman seem to want Steve Martin for their All of Me remake. Will he do it again?

- I think we already knew Oliver Platt was going to be in Frost/Nixon but his role in Nip/Tuck is news. He certainly likes those /s.
- Nicole Kidman is the new spokesmodel for Nintendo.

- The US Masters of Horror season one box set is limited to 20,000 copies. More than enough?

- The Wizard of Gore is getting good notices. Good. I like Glover, I love magic and I'm okay with gore - I want this to work.

- Kreacher is somehow essential to the last Harry Potter book.

Movie Minesweeper - The World's Longest Ticker Tape Parade Edition

This is going to take me most of the morning, most likely. I must really love you - all of you.

- SuperHeroHype have a cast line-up photo from Iron Man, weird, posed thing that it is.

- Is there to be a woman president on the 2008 season of 24?

- Uwe Boll's Bloodrayne 2 has been denied an R rating by the MPAA. So, whatever it is, it is also more 'adult' than, say, Hostel 2.

- Thor Freudenthal is to direct family film of Lois Duncan's Hotel For Dogs from an adaptation by Jeff Lowell.

- Wes Craven is suing Pauly Shore. That's one dream team we'll never see work together then. I hope Alexander Payne and Carrot Top get to collaborate before some kind of legal entanglement wrecks my dreams there too.

- Stephen King doesn't like the idea of Captivity. Neither does he like Kubrick's The Shining. At least he gives some idea of what upset him about The Shining, whereas Captivity apparently just 'goes too far'. Oh - and he's wrong. Kubricks' film is leaps and bounds ahead of the original book.

- Len Wiseman wants to direct Wolverine. The only thing keeping pen from paper must be the wait for Die Hard 4's opening numbers.

- MTV have some Shaw Bros. clips that are probably very worth watching, including one with commentary by Quentin Tarantino - but I don't know for sure as I'm in the UK, so they won't work for me. Sigh.

- The transfer of Criterion's Berlin Alexanderplatz set has met criticism, but has been easily, and conclusively defended.

- The Princess and the Frog's story reels run to 90 minutes and have been well received. Apparently, the film has a twist ending... place your bets now.

- Mamoru Oshii's next film is to be The Sky Crawlers, adapted from Hiroshi Mori's books. The anti-war fantasy features hothoused teen soldiers sent to die in wars that exist only to entertain. Oshii promises a love story in the midst of the satire and action.

- Enchanted is being seen as the starting point for a new franchise.

- Alex Cox has turned his unprodcued Repo Man sequel script, Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday into a comic book. I saw the link at TheBeat.

- Michael Bay wasn't a Transformers fan before taking the job. Of course not - but I wonder if this has rankled some fanboys?

- Daniel Benmayor's PSP commerical is like Peter Pan meets Parkour. I foudn the link at Feed.

- Openin casting calls are being held for two youthful roles in Harry Potter 6.

- Angela Bassett will star as Brenda, a Chicago single mother, in the next Tyler Perry film, Meet the Browns.

- Amy Adams is in negotiations to take the key role in John Patrick Shanley's film of his own play, Doubt. Her character is to get caught up in a tense, angry confrontation between those played by Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

- CAA mailboy Ben Dey pitched the comedy Coma Boy to Brian Grazer, and now it's to be a film.

- Lee Hall is adapting the Children of the Lamp books for Dreamworks. They're fantastical family sagas revolving around a dynasty of genies.

- Howard Deutch is to direct Bachelor No. 2, with Kate Hudson and Dane Cook in the lead roles.

- Suzie Templeton's Peter and the Wolf nabbed the big prizes at Annecy. See her previous film, Stanley and Dog for a (reputedly far less impressive, but impressive nonetheless) taste of her stop-motion skills.

- IESB have noted that John Carter of Mars is to be live action but feature animation. That's like almost every genre film these days, surely? Shot in live action, augmented with CG?

- The Scarecrow has been snapped on the Dark Knight set. So that settles that. Apparently.

- Just to be clear: Frank Miller isn't necessarily directing Trouble is My Middle Name. TheBeat wanted to make that absolutely clear.

- The NC17 rating for Hatchet has been overturned.

- Timothy Olyphant and Xavier Gens have given a Hitman interview.

- John Krasinski seems to be up for the Fletch role. So, what about Joshua Jackson?

- Alicia Keys' Big Pita, Little Pita are to produce Catfish, the story of the woman behind the biggest strike in US history.

- Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl is now set up to be a film from the Montecito Production Co.

- The Weinsteins are coughing up for a series of English language, made-in-Hong-Kong action films. Apparently, wire work will be kept to a minimum - and I know somebody who will be pleased about that.

- Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby are adapting Cowboys and Aliens into a feature script.

- My Zinc Bed is to star Uma Thurman, Paddy Considine and Jonathan Pryce - three out of three, I'd say. Anthony Page is to direct while David Hare is writing from his own play.

- Satoshi Kon has spoken to The Washington Post. Read it.

- Indiana Jones is headed to Hawaii.

- Images of an Alien/Predator combo turned up online. Not from Aliens vs. Predator 2, as it happens, but just a fake.

- Eddie Murphy is the father of Mel Brown's baby after all. What a surprise.

- You can watch Robot Chicken's Star Wars special with video commentary now.

- The Young Ones is returning to DVD, with new bonus features.

- David Strathairn is to appear in the American Tale of Two Sisters.

And, yes, I was right, this took hours.

Where The Toy Things Are

The first image from Where the Wild Things Are has popped up online and, yep, it looks really quite exciting indeed. I've popped it below with more snaps from the New York Toyfare. There's Beowulf and the Hulk's silhouette, and if you go over to the coverage at Wizard, you can see plenty more - including well distributed, much discussed, boring snaps of vehicles from The Dark Knight and Speed Racer. Yawn.

But this Wild Things image. Now. There's something, eh?

Bat Droppings

I'm sorry, but I'm getting sick of all of these Dark Knight e-mails from people I don't know. I just don't know if I should be grateful to receive them or angry at people for wasting my time - and, as you may see it, your time too. I guess the answer is that I don't know - yet. If/when any of them turn out to be true, then I'll definitely be grateful. Retroactive gratitude is the best I can offer, I guess.

Here's two completely different, utterly conflicting pieces of information I have received in the last couple of days. As far as I know, they could both be a complete and utter crock, but let's take a look.

Oh... and if anybody can send me a copy of the script and put me out of my misery, I'd love them forever.

Piece one comes from the original source of the Riddler story from a few days back:

Here's the deal on Nygma : when I was prepping XXX XXXXX XXXXX I mentioned to the XXXX XXXXXXX manager something about Nygma. "Can't believe Hall is playing Nygma".

He turned, rubbed his forehead and sighed.

"Hall isn't playing Nygma. No one is. The suit was for a joke for Bale."

This [suit] was presented to Bale along with the Nipple-Suit. This was a joke played by Nolan and Goyer. And now I feel like a jack-ass for reporting falsely to you.

Piece two comes from a new 'scooper', claiming that they feel safe reporting to me as I have already run something on the subject:

Hi Mr. Connelly,

I am writing to share my knowledge regarding Mr. Anthony Hall's role in The Dark Knight. I had the privilege of working on the set for one day as I was X XXXX XX X XXXXXXXXX XXXX. On one particular scene we were able to see a brief dialogue between Mr. Hall and some other actor. Nothing big except for the fact that the other man calls him Mr. Nygma! Yes, from what I've seen and heard the future Riddler is indeed in the movie! Apart from that I can also tell, that his character wears a dark suit and a green tie. I think the tie is the only connection with his alter ego. Also he seemed rather nice and definitely not so crazy as Jim Carrey's portrayal of The Riddler in Batman Forever.

I'm writing this because I know that this was spoiled by someone else from the crew at your site, so I think by adding my small share it won't be such a big thing for the director and studio. I'm a big Batman fan myself and like others can't wait to see the finished movie.

And that's the pair of them.

Now, the Goyer comment in the first piece pretty much exposes it as fraud. Goyer has almost nothing to do with the project - certainly now that it is in production.

As for the second piece... I'm definitely sceptical, not least as I believe that Hall's scenes are to be with Morgan Freeman and he's not just 'some actor'. But maybe it's all true. Who am I to say?

Does anybody out there have any verifiable Dark Knight info? At all?

Movie Minesweeper - The Flash Memory Edition

- The trailer for Resurrecting the Champ is now on YouTube. Wonder who uploaded that? Anyway, it'll be nice to see Sam Jackson as a down-and-out and a boxer in the same film.

- Jimmy Fallon has told Howard Stern his I Dream of Jeannie film is off. I found the link at Cinematical.

- Rockstar have responded to the BBFC's banning of their Manhunt 2 game. Can they appeal and turn this around?

- Steve Miner's Day of the Dead rehash is getting some reshoots. Hopefully the entire film, hopefully reshot by a completely different director.

- The Guardian are calling Woody Allen's next Midnight in Barcelona. It starts filming next month. In Barcelona. At Midnight. Possibly. Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson - two out of three ain't bad.

- Katie Holmes is pregnant again. Possibly. Her best years were ahead of her.

- Neil Gaiman doesn't think Shia LaBeouf is necessarily young enough (or young looking enough) to get the part of Sexton in Death and Me. He also suggests that Warner Independent might be bankrolling the film, not New Line...

- MySpace have launched their Miniside Network today. It's a repository of shortened episodes of old TV shows and... er... that's about it.

- The NYTimes piece on Marvel Movies is a must-see, if only for the picture of The Hulk, David Maisel and Iron Man.

- More details of the Twin Peaks Gold Box are surfacing.

- JoBlo have a pretty darn good Dark Knight set report.

The Bat-Pod On The Today Show - Now Updated With Direct Download Link

MSN have a clip of the Bat-Pod on this morning's Today show. Get a good look at the vehicle and - if memory serves, I have her name correct - Meredith Viera atop it like Bale's double will have to be.

[EDIT: And thanks to Verbal, you can now directly download this video for the ages. He went awry at first, then sorted it out. Brilliant stuff]

Dark Knight, Deep Throat

The Dark Knight rumours are getting more and more fun by the day. I'm not sure how many of them I believe - not many, anyway - but I'm honestly enjoying the circus of it all. There's less real news than in a double page spread of the Daily Sport, and twice as many fake boobs, but it's every bit as entertaining. The 'Hitler's Bus Found on Moon' of film stories.

This might be the most amusing set of 'spoilers' so far - not least because they come in the form of a video. To share it with you, I tried to upload it using Blogger's new video button, but that seemed to stall, so I settled for YouTube.

Now, I can't really make out every word, so you might not be able to either, but the general drive is clear: details of two scenes, each of them key, and each of them fairly well supported by things I already know for sure from other sources.

I'm expecting more of this stuff, which could be cool, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Many of the anonymous e-mailers who send me stuff (even stuff that turns out to be 100% accurate) fail to ever rematerialise. I guess we each only know what we know.

A lot of this is hard to hear but the odd gem is crystal clear - if you pardon the expression. Enjoy.

[EDIT: Video removed. Unfortunately]

Batman's 2-Wheel Ride Revealed

The LA Times have a little piece about the Bat-pod, Batman's motorbike thing from The Dark Knight. It seems to leave him a little exposed and...

...well, I won't get too far into knocking it until I find out how it works in the film. There's another image at the LA Times.

Dark Knight Spoilers...?

I've received an e-mail that purports to reveal plenty of Dark Knight spoilers. A fascinating e-mail, if you ask me. I know many of you would like to read them too, so here they are. Some pieces are edited, others explicitly censored - all to protect the innocent, as it were.

Hello Mr. Connelly.

I'm XXXXXXX XX XXX XXX of The Dark Knight. I've learned major spoilers regarding the film. Both in reading script pages that XXXX XXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX and XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXX being filmed - one with Anthony Michael Hall.

MAJOR SPOILER 1 :

Jason Bard is indeed in the film. He has a spin-off (kind've) plot in the film. Jason Bard is introduced when a stoned man is pulled from a vehicle, Black tape covering his eyes. He apparently has been dealing cocaine and other toxic chemicals, the chemicals from the first film (Scarecrows plot) is in-fact a major selling item. It sells massively on the street, many alike want to expierence the "Journey To Death". Onto Bard, though - Bard is in the film when the Drugee is pulled from the van.

Apparently, Some (Mobster..) killed his wife, and killing a drug user will help relieve him of this fact. Quite stupid, but I saw this being filmed as well as a script page (Page 67, and Page 54, being passed along the set). Both pages that describe the Bank Robbery and JASON BARD struggling with the muzzle of his gun up against the drugee's head.

Thats all I know regarding "Jason Bard".

MAJOR SPOILER TWO:

Anthony Michael Hall is indeed playing a good guy. Mr. Edward Nygma. Correct. This was filmed for one brief moment. X XXXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXX XXXXXXXX XX XXX XXXX XXXX-XXXX XXXXXX.

MAJOR PLOT SPOILER THREE:

The Jokers Suit is pure awesomeness. The suit was a dark purple. I mean DARK purple.

And finally:

The Harley Quinzell rumor is false. Word got around the set that Quinzell was making a cameo appearance, but NO.

As I said, fascinating stuff. Thank you very much to the e-mailer.

[EDIT: The e-mailer revealed some information about their means of acquiring this information which gave rise to a test. It revealed to me some details they must definitely know. So, as a test, I sent them a jpeg, expecting a certain response. At time of writing, they have failed to respond. This suggests that all of the above should be taken as nothing more than rumour. Soon enough, it will either start to line up with official information or not, and then we can make another, further informed, judgment on how accurate these spoilers are]

Movie Minesweeper - The Hat Like A Shoe Edition

- Yunatron has posted some snaps of Aaron Eckhardt and Maggie Gyllenhaal on the Dark Knight set to their flickr collection.

- Carlos Cuaron's Rudo y Cursi is filming now - and Reuters have a picture and some details. This is the first of the ChaChaCha movies to get rolling.

- The new Star Trek film starts shooting in November. Casting is underway, and we can expect to hear more at Comic-Con.

- CanMag have some Ratatouille trivia and concept art.

And... it's Sunday. Things go slow on Sundays. More later... I hope.

Dark Knight Teaser Poster

I'm told that this is the official teaser poster for The Dark Knight. What do you think?


It isn't great - the logo is too low, it should be higher for sake of balance. Which alone makes me suspicious. And then there's the font. But it may well be real - I've seen plenty of teaser posters this dodgy before now.

The Batsuit Pops Up In Entertainment Weekly

Here's a look at the Batsuit as it appears in Entertainment Weekly as of today - click upon it to make it bigger. AintItCool posted the scan first, I believe. They've got the contacts - as I've said before, and will doubtlessly say again. Yep, they really seem to be most scoopers' first port of call.

Latino Review Have A Look At The Joker's Motor - Updated With Photo

Go take a look. Not what I was expecting, I have to admit. I guess high speed car chases are quite squarely out of the picture, then.

[EDIT: LatinoReview ditched the picture, apparently with no explanation, so here it is, below]

[EDIT: Everybody seems to think it is a fake. Why didn't LatinoReview just leave it in place and 'fess up, then? Are they being wimps?]

The Batbike As Pulled From Aint It Cool News

Last night, AintItCool ran the following image of the Batbike. They've since deleted the entire post. Their version of events is that this is a real Batbike, as it were, just from a Batman ride, not from The Dark Knight.

I don't know how true this story is. I'm interested in why they'd remove the entire post relating to this image whereas several other fakes have been left up for all time and just marked as fake.

There's something they're not telling us.

Movie Minesweeper - The How Much Can I Get Done Before House Starts Edition

- Doug Jones is blogging the production of Hellboy 2. He reveals that one of his characters, the Angel of Death, is a she and that Anna Walton has been cast as Princess Nuala, seemingly a love interest for Abe Sapien.

- ComingSoon's SuperheroHype 'imprint' have run a very hi-res picture of The Joker as per the USA Today story of a few days back. [EDIT: Link changed. No idea what was wrong last time... worked for me]

- Talking of USA Today, they have a Speed Racer piece with interview quotes and a pic of the Mach 5. Looks fairly authentic to my disinterested eye.

- Apparently, Karen Allen is denying she's even been contacted about Indiana Jones and the Maguffin of Unsafe Stunt Work. Of course, Shia played the same game for a while.

- Similarly, Shwnee Smith is denying she's in Saw 4 but BloodyDisgusting are insisting she is. Is her very appearance a plot twist? Are BloodyDisgusting barking up the wrong tree? Does anybody care about the Saw films anymore? I'll place my chips on a) she is in the film and b) I know I don't care, I'm assuming you're over it all too.

- Barry Lyndon is being left out of the Hi-Def Kubrick box set. Why?

And now, House is on. So I'm off.

Imax/Batman Press Release

I'd like to present the really frustrating bits and pieces from the new IMAX/Dark Knight press release, confirming just how screwed The Dark Knight is going to be.

Here's the confirmation of a disruptive ratio change:

The marriage of footage filmed with IMAX and 35mm cameras in the final feature will have a major impact on the audience's viewing experience, whether seeing The Dark Knight in an IMAX or traditional theatre. When the scenes shot on IMAX cameras are shown in IMAX theatres, the aspect ratio will morph to 1.43 to 1, expanding the image to fill the entire screen and magnifying the overall effect, both literally and figuratively.

And here's Nolan not understanding why a decent sized cinemascope screen beats IMAX hands down (at least for this kind of film):

Director Christopher Nolan added, "In continuing the story of such a great icon I'm thrilled to be able to expand the scope of the film, not just in terms of its story, but in giving Batman and The Joker the largest possible canvas on which to face off. No existing technology compares with the IMAX format in terms of its ability to throw the audience into the action, and we're very proud and excited to use this technology in a way that no one has before."

Death To Anthony Michael Hall?

[EDIT: Read right to the bottom, please]

Below is an e-mail I received this evening, pretty much verbatim - but be warned, it contains what may be seen as serious Dark Knight spoiler material.

Hello Brendon, I have been a fan of your blog for a pretty long time. Right now I'm working as part of the crew of the Dark Knight film. Right now I don't do much, mostly just helping around the sets, but I like it.

There's a small restaurant around that some of the set people eat at called "Little Katie's". It's known by most of us that Chris Nolan regularly eats there as well. People have of course tried to listen for plot points of the story, but during lunch he doesnt usually talk about it. Anyway, the crew was given a free day a while ago, and I decided to grab something to eat at Little katies. To my surprise, Chris Nolan and Charles Rovan were having lunch aswell. I grabbed the booth behind theirs and listened to their conversation.

They stayed about two hours and didn't talk much about the film, until about 10 minutes before they left. Chris Nolan referenced Anthony Michael Halls DEATH in the film. I listened much closer, and I heard a little more. From what I heard, it sounds like Anthony Michael Hall is indeed a wannabe batman, or a "Imitation Hero" as Chris nolan put it. I also heard Nolan reference the scene in which Batman beats the "Imitation hero" to DEATH. I'm not sure why Batman would do that, because thats about the time they left, but I was stunned.

I went to Batman-on-Film with this tidbit, but was ignored, so I sent it again and again, with no response. I figured if Jett over at BOF doesnt want this, then it's yours to do with whatever you want. I hope I helped, Brendon.

(I love it when a source just lets me cut and paste their e-mail rather than, oh, I dunno... pretend I don't know which actress is up for the exciting comics-to-film role.)

Well, I have heard from a source I know to be linked to the film who also thought Anthony Michael Hall had a role like this (they'd worked it out by process of elimination) so this strikes me as a potentially very interesting piece of the Dark Knight puzzle. Does anybody else know any more information? And does anybody know why I can't find Little Katie's referenced online anyplace? Is this all just a hoax? Or is Little Katie's just too little?

Let's give the e-mailer the benefit of the doubt for now...

[EDIT: Or maybe not. Here's a rebuttal from Batman On Film:

I never received an email from this source as he indicated.

So, don't believe it. As if you were ever going to anyway]

Movie Minesweeper - The Poland Thinks Tinky Winky Is Gay But So What If He Is Edition

Here's a bunch of links for you - some of which will look mighty familiar to regular film ick readers.

- First familiar story: Johnny Depp may play Alexander Litvinenko. We told you about this in January.

- Second familiar story: Guillermo del Toro is to make a movie of Tom Manning's Runoff. We told you about this in April.

And now some less directly familiar stories.

- Michael Madsen is doubtful about the future of the Sin City franchise. Maybe this is a familiar story after all - I've been doubling my bet on this one never appearing every week or so for the last few months now. Everything I hear tells me we'll be very, very lucky to ever see another Sin City film. I've also been told today that Rodriguez is locked for Land of the Lost (with Will Ferell) as well as the previously announced Barbarella, but I've yet to confirm this with a second source so... watch this space.

- Indiana Jones and the City of Gods starts shooting this week. I found this link at Coming Soon.

- Some pics of Kate Winslet playing dress-up for hubby have appeared online.

- Not everybody is enjoying the guerilla marketing campaign for The Dark Knight.

- A remake of A Tale of Two Sisters is about to start shooting, so why do we know so little?
- Eli Roth slightly misrepresents the BBFC and praises the MPAA.

- BroadwayWorld have gone behind the scenes of the Finding Nemo musical.

- Catweazle (the thinking child's Worzel Gummidge, I feel) is to be a 'major motion picture'. John Henderson is to direct, but Catweazle creator Richard Carpenter is on board in some capacity.

- A Captain Thunder... sorry, Thunder Captain promo reel has popped up online. Don't expect too much.

- No link for this last story, I'm afraid - it appeared in print, but Home Media Magazine have announced that the deleted scenes on the Inland Empire DVD have been edited into a 90 minute parallel story. They also report that Lynch's original cut of the film was nine hours long.

Here's What's Wrong With The Bat For IMAX

USA Today have broken the news that The Dark Knight will be released to IMAX cinemas. Sounds like a good move, eh? It's not that simple however... we'll get into that in a moment... but first... the pictures.

Yep, they also included two pictures - one of masked bank robbers, one of whom may be The Joker (my money's on the one in the back) and another in which, indeed, The Joker appears without his mask. Let's take a look at them, before we go on...



Quite a cleverly chosen pair of pics, I feel. I've been quite impressed by the marketing of this film so far.

So, back to the problems. What's up with this decision to shoot on the IMAX format? Well, there's two things.

The first isn't specifically an issue this time round but in the case of every feature film shot on IMAX. Simply put, composing images and editing them together for a screen of that size is a trickier thing than working for, say, a decent sized cinemascope frame.

Imagine a simple conversation comprised of two set-ups, each of them over the shoulder shots. Now imagine the sequence cutting back and forth between the two of these pieces of footage. The eye has to travel, on each cut, from side to side of the screen, and this takes time, particularly as the eye has to read a large area ofd information to find a new focal point. And this time is instrumental in the precision of an edit. The difference in scale between a small cinema screen (think about those in the dark recesses of a smaller multiplex, where films wind up after five weeks on release or so) and an IMAX screen is enough to require different edits. Really - to make your cuts absolutely smooth in even a simple conversation scene can require a frame or two, maybe even three or four, of alteration between these two scales. That's assuming, of course, the perfect edit is something we're seeking.

Okay, this isn't a deal-breaker when we're only talking about conversations, about the ping-pong back and forth between two over the shoulder shots. When you start dealing with fast action, multiple angles and complicated shifts in screen geography, however, you might start finding your film unravelling a little. The kinetics of a sophisticated action sequence can be disturbed quite seriously by not taking the scale of the finished product into account.

So, the question now becomes, does Nolan leave a buffer in his edits to allow for the massive scale of the IMAX screen, of the immense, detailed images that the eye has to navigate - even though this might make the film seem a tiny bit sluggish in a normal auditorium or on TV? If he can't work the format pefectly, he'll be left with a trade off between clarity and pace when, really, both are equally important.

That's always an issue, and not specific to this case. And there are solutions, there are ways to stage and cut your sequences to sidestep the problem. But these solutions are tricky to keep in sight, aren't something directors and editors are widely skilled or experienced in, and not everybody is going to be able to pull it off.

And of course, to make matters worse, Nolan is using the IMAX format for only the action scenes of his film - where the above problem will be at it's most noticeable. But this fact also leads us on, however, to the other problem, the one specific to this project.

According to USA Today, the IMAX format is only being used for four action sequences. Nolan explains that these four scenes will 'fill the IMAX screens' - the implication being that the others won't.

Just a few days ago I was listing films that are in more than one aspect ratio during their running time - suddenly, here's another for the list. In the other cases, however, the change was always made horizontally: the film widened, or narrowed. That isn't the case here - this time, the film is to become taller, to expand vertically. And while a horizontal shift isn't exactly invisible, it's much less distracting than a vertical change - at least at this scale.

So, four times throughout his film, Nolan is to suddenly shift the window on his film's world. Four times throughout his film, he's to take his audiences by the scruff of their necks and pull them back into their cinema seats, remind them just how artificial an experience they are having. This is just the same problem the IMAX version of Superman Returns had (without the sideshow bonus of 3D). It's simply not a good idea - and four times, throughout the film? And just as momentum is supposed to be building?

Terrible move. Terrible.

My early recommendation is to avoid the IMAX release of The Dark Knight altogether. Hopefully the compositions in the action scenes will work fine on a normal cinema screen too, and the film will therefore at least have one 'optimum' version.

We're only just starting to see the damage that DVD and home cinema have really done to cinema. They've squashed audience sizes just enough that studios, directors, exhibitors and distributors are turning to William Castle novelty and chicanery, no matter the cost to the film. I hope they stop these silly sideshow gimmicks right now and simply get on with the matter of making all of their films in 3D. That's not only the best solution they have, it represents a genuine step forward in cinema.

The I Say 'Bank Holi-', You Say 'Memorial' Edition

- Want to preview the soundtrack to Ocean's 13, see some stills and read an interview with David Holmes? Sure you do.

- There's a rumour that Batman might be down at the London Eye today. On a bank holiday? Don't think so. Bet you a quid this was dreamt up by Red Ken's tourism elves.

- Yet another computer-generated Star Wars trailer... this time for an upcoming combo-edition of the Lego Star Wars games (fun but really very slight - no depth to them at all, really).

- Pirate copies of Hostel 2 have turned up, with the name S. Mooridian watermarked into the print. At least we know who is going to be fired/blacklisted/executed for their part in this. There's little point me telling you not to go near pirate DVDs and so on, but I will anyway. Don't.

- Cannes has closed up for a year, awards were given, reputations made.

- The murder of cricket coach Bob Woolmer looks set to inspire a new film from Mahesh Bhatt. Bizarrely, he plans to dramatise the real murder investigation in the context of a fictional love story.

- You can directly download the trailer for Larry Fessenden's The Last Winter. It looks truly great and apparently it is.