Though that could change: "I've seen bits and pieces of them. Honestly, I'm not just saying this … I really kind of want to see the Chris Nolan one, because he's so crazy talented, so I'll keep saying, 'I gotta go see that, I gotta go see that,' and then like everything I still want to see, fuck, I just forget. There must be a hundred movies out there. I'll say, 'I gotta go see that.' And then I never get around to seeing them. Or maybe I'll see it later on television. I'm really bad at that. But I will tell you this: Every time I see clips of his movies, they look awesome. This trailer that's out now? Fuck, it looks unbelievable." [Grantland]
The Dark Knight Rises director heaped praise on actress Anne Hathaway ahead of the final Batman installment, which opens July 20th. He said Hathaway performed so well as the human-feline-vixen that she deserves her own spin-off movie. But that doesn't necessarily mean the British-born filmmaker will spearhead a Catwoman enterprise himself.
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The first reviews of The Dark Knight Rises won't hit for at least another week, but Warner Bros. keeps putting out tantalizing looks at the Chris Nolan-directed trilogy-ender. If you're one of the legions of Bat-curious fans out there hungry for new peeks at the superhero finale, you'll find a host of new images and behind-the-scenes footage in a newly released 13-minute featurette for The Dark Knight Rises. Go ahead, treat yo' self.
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In Monday morning's round-up of news briefs, Oscar-winner Ernest Borgnine is remembered after he died over the weekend. Also, as awards season approaches, SAG opens up its submissions; Christopher Nolan gets his prints at Grauman's Chinese; Michael Fassbender boards a franchise; Beasts still strong in the specialty box office and Norway's The Almost Man wins a top film festival prize.
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The film: Insomnia (2002)
Why It's an Inessential Essential: Last week, Warner Brothers released a Blu Ray box set of British director Christopher Nolan's films. Looking at the box set (other titles include: Memento, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Inception), one is reminded of Nolan's celebrity status as one of the most instantly recognizable filmmakers working today. Which makes it difficult to imagine a film that might be considered obscure or in need of reconsideration. But the clear outlier in the Christopher Nolan Director's Collection is Insomnia, Nolan's remake of the 1997 Norwegian film of the same name.
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Here's a YouTube mashup that is a little too much fun to ignore: Michael Fassbender as secret agent 007 in Christopher Nolan's James Bond (as edited together by one inspired internet film enthusiast).
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This weekend welcomes Snow White and the Huntsman to theaters, mere months after Relativity's Mirror, Mirror preceded Universal's Kristen Stewart film in the race to produce live-action versions of the fairy tale that Disney animators arguably perfected decades ago. And odd as it is to behold this practice of two serpents eating the other’s tail, stranger still is the thought of a studio executive ensconced in a corner office, slamming his fist down on the old-growth polished conference table, and bellowing to the suits, "Dammit! Where in the hell is OUR Snow White script!?!?!"
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I know that it's absolute heresy to so much as whisper the possibility that anything at all might be wrong with The Dark Knight, but a new supercut from the folks who brought us The King's Speech: Just the Stammering goes a long way to spotlight one of the blockbuster's weakest links: Heath Ledger.
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The final trailer for Christopher Nolan's July Bat-sequel The Dark Knight Rises is now available for your viewing pleasure (see it in theaters attached to The Avengers this Friday), and something rose, all right: My nerd boner. Yours will too when you watch Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway & Co. in the eerily somber third trailer, then join me in running down all the juicy sights and not-so-muffled sounds and breathtaking moments glimpsed within.
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Where have you read this before? "In December, Paramount made the unconventional decision to release Ghost Protocol exclusively in IMAX theaters five days before broadening its release. The move, which Mr. Bird advocated, helped catapult the film to the No. 1 spot when it went wide the following week on the way to becoming the highest-grossing Mission Impossible installment yet. For Mr. Bird, the point is that the typical multiplex theater lacks excitement. When he was young, he says 'if you wanted to see a brand new movie, the only way was to see it perfectly projected in a really big theater with the bulb turned all the way up and an attentive projectionist.'" Adds Christopher Nolan: "These were cameras that had been to the top of Mount Everest, to the bottom of the ocean and into outer space, but people thought we couldn't make a feature film. It was absurd." [WSJ]
There's so much good stuff in this new DGA Quarterly interview (particularly about the joys of IMAX), but for the record, Christopher Nolan isn't messing around with his commitment to shooting on old-fashioned glorious film. And according to Nolan, his peers shouldn't be, either:
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Oh...my...GOD, Becky -- look at Catwoman's butt. Ahem. In a new promo image from The Dark Knight Rises, Anne Hathaway poses as Catwoman and shows, as many salivating fanboys have already suggested, just why the Batman sequel might've earned that PG-13 for "sensuality." But wait! Why is everyone talking about Catwoman's butt and not Batman's meticulously sculpted-but-jaunty rubberized codpiece? Equal opportunity for costumed cosplay ogling after the jump, thanks to two new promo images for the July tentpole.
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After years of foisting dashed-off 3-D — and its inflated ticket prices — on movie audiences, studios may have found their most reliable ally yet in shoring up box office: IMAX. And not just the punch and potential of the brand's own 3-D, either, but good old conventional 2-D as well.
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It's easy to pile on Hollywood for its craven cash grabs, sequelitis and other low-hanging fruit harvested and passed off in the name of popular entertainment. It's also fair, after a glance at the top 20 or so openings of all time, to acknowledge that mass audiences have tended to let studios get away with such output over the last decade in particular. But if we're to take anything from the huge opening-weekend success of The Hunger Games, it might be to look at its place on that list — squarely in third place, below even better-regarded cinematic efforts Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 and The Dark Knight. With this development, could crowds and critics alike have proven what the sheer volume of lesser hits would seem to contradict — that quality matters?
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Film journalist and biographer David Hughes has long written with authority on subjects from Stanley Kubrick to David Lynch. But few writers know more about the vicissitudes of that uniquely Hollywood phenomenon known as "development hell." Hence the updated, revised edition of Hughes's book Tales From Development Hell, which arrives in store and online today. And Movieline has an exclusive excerpt that you can browse now.
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