Tagged: christian bale

Final trailer for “The Dark Knight Rises”

Well, that was unexpected. The third and final trailer for “The Dark Knight Rises” has arrived online earlier than anticipated, giving us our best look yet at what appears to be the basic story of the film.

I say the basic story because we still don’t really know the full plot of the movie, which is quite something. We know that Bane (Tom Hardy) attacks Gotham City and Batman (Christian Bale). We know Batman is badly injured and maybe/probably taken out of the game for a while. We know Anne Hathaway plays Catwoman and we know Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a Gotham police officer. This trailer gives us a much better glimpse of Hathaway and Gordon-Levitt, while also showing a bit more of what happens after Batman faces Bane. (I am oddly pleased this trailer seems to give us an idea of the basic story structure without giving away every major detail. I am also pleased that Christopher Nolan and whomever cut this trailer opted to shy away from the excessive BWAAAAM-ing that has taken over every post-”Inception” trailer.)

What else do we know? We know the city descends into chaos and Batman eventually flies his Chris Nolan-fied Batwing. We know Marion Cotillard is in there, and that is all one can say about that without spoiling anything. We know Gary Oldman, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are back. We don’t really know the overall stakes of the story, nor do we know the backstory behind some of the things we saw photographed on-set when the movie was filming. We also don’t know perhaps the biggest lingering issue: We don’t know if Nolan truly wraps up his series — i.e. kills Batman — and leaves the franchise to completely reboot in his wake. July 20 cannot come soon enough.

The trailer is appearing in front of “The Avengers” this weekend, and Warner Bros. began pushing out some so-called “viral” marketing campaign on Monday that revealed images from that trailer. (One enterprising fan even turned these released images into a GIF.) It was expected that the actual trailer wouldn’t appear online until sometime after “The Avengers” came out. The second trailer, last December, hit theaters over the weekend and didn’t officially arrive online until after the weekend was over; as a result, many people watched crappy bootlegged versions that people had recorded in theaters. I’m guessing Warner Bros. wanted to avoid a repeat of that. And if this trailer makes “The Avengers” an afterthought, however briefly, in the week leading up to its release…well, I’m sure Warner Bros. doesn’t mind that.

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The Oscars: The Supporting Acting Categories

[As we approach the the 83rd Academy Awards, this site will be breaking down the major categories and posting about the Oscars in general. Enjoy.]

The Oscars are days away. Days! The votes are tallied. Information about the ceremony is starting to leak. Jack Nicholson has already been lowered, by crane, into his front-row seat at the Kodak Theater; he’s still asleep, mind you, and they’ll just wake him up a few minutes before the show begins.

There’s been an odd buildup to the Oscars this year. Last year, pretty much every frontrunner took home the award; in each of the three preceding years, there were only one or two close races or surprises. In other words, since “Crash” won the Oscar and forever besmirched (BESMIRCHED) the ceremony, Academy members seem to have decided to just watch the lengthy awards season and agree with the majority whenever possible.

So let’s predict some stuff.

Continue reading →

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Armie Hammer may have just revealed some important “Superman” news

Fresh off his buzzy turn as both Winklevoss twins in “The Social Network,” Armie Hammer spoke to Vulture about the flick, the real life people, all that stuff you’ve already heard about. But of particular interest was his answer when asked if he or his people had reached out to Zack Snyder regarding the “Superman” reboot:

You know what’s funny? I did talk to my people recently about that for the first time, and I think they’re going a little older with Superman. I hear they’re going 35, 40.

Well! Weirdly, there’s an actor a lot of people would love to see in that role, and he is right in that age range: Jon Hamm, who turned 39 earlier this year. A lot of online chatter discounted Hamm’s chances for the role, because these superhero movies always go so young (Brandon Routh was 25 when “Superman Returns” came out, Andrew Garfield will be 28 when the new “Spider-Man” drops, et cetera) by virtue of wanting to lock down stars who can make multiple installments over a long span. (If I recall correctly, Josh Hartnett turned down the Superman role because he didn’t want to get locked in playing the same role for a decade. He just opted to play roles nobody ever saw, I guess. But other actors have said similar things about franchise roles.)

But remember Christopher Nolan’s involvement. With the sequel to “The Dark Knight” likely coming out in 2012, Christian Bale (cast in September 2003) will likely be done with that series after three films and nine years of work. Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man involvement lasted for seven years (from casting in 2000 to the third film in 2007). There are other routes, like Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine for a dozen-plus years, but Nolan has stated his focus on story over “infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story.” So it’s hard to imagine Hamm would have to play the role for longer than seven or eight years, and the dude can pull off Superman from ages 40 to 47, right?

(Of course, this flies in the face of other reports that have the new movie taking place with a young Clark Kent traveling the world and debating if he wants to be Superman. So we’ll see.)

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