…is a great film. Seriously.
If you’ve not seen it yet, seek it out. It’s a bit dark, in an Ill Manors kind of way but definitely worth it.
When you watch it though, realise that it could also be interpreted as a companion piece to the Dark Knight trilogy – aka – ‘Where would Alfred end up if he was never hired by the Wayne family?’
True story.
So I’ve been hoarding a metric ton of Bat-related stuff for some time now…
And it’s about time I posted it all really.
Let’s do this –
1. Awesome Bat Converse (for me)
As spotted at the Converse store on Carnaby St.
2. Bat-leotard-tastic
3. Retro-Bat Dress FTW
Both spotted at Lazy Oaf, Carnaby St.
4. A Red Carpet Giant Cowl of EPIC proportions
5. Holy Flaming Bat Symbols Batman!
6. Yeah, this is my Tumbler
Yeah, I know. OK, so that last batch was from The Dark Knight Rises premiere… and yeah, it was pretty damn cool.
7. Nokia Maps 3D Gotham City
January 19th 2011. That was the day I first wrote the words ‘Nokia Maps: 3D Gotham City’ in my Moleskine —
July 5th 2012, this video dropped –
Then on July 6th, it went live. 18mths of hard work from a multitude of super-smart people and the dream became real. It still makes me smile.
8. Hanging out on the Batman set
Well, kinda.
The above image is taken form Batman Begins. It was shot on the grand staircase at the GORGEOUS St Pancras Renaissance Hotel… and here’s the GF hanging out on said staircase.
Winner.
Ps. You HAVE to stay at this hotel. It’s one of the best, if not THE BEST that London has to offer.
9. Behind the scenes of Batman, 1966
Big up to Michael for putting me onto this. The photo above is great, but the rest of the set is awesome.
10. Amazing Dark Knight Rises Wallpapers
This is just one of many amazing TDKR wallpapers that are available to download. iO9 has the set.
Go, get!
11. Dark Knight Rises Reactions
I wrote a spoiler-free review of TDKR straight after seeing the premiere, but the film itself sparked a whole ton of various reactions, eclipsing even those inspired by PROMETHEUS.
To my mind, Comics Alliance posted the best collection of TDKR reactions to date. Seriously. My note on this one said — ‘Best post ever (may save back for a bat-post of some kind)’
12. Batman Maybe
A Batman-inspired version of Call Me Maybe? SIGN. ME. UP.
CONTAINS MASSIVE DARK KNIGHT RISES SPOILERSÂ
There are no words. No Batman-stache.Â
13. Batman: Dark Knightfall
This super high quality six minute STOP MOTION ANIMATED Batman film has to be seen to be believed..
14. A Lego Tumbler? OH GO ON THEN
H/T Rodakk
15. David Cronenberg ain’t a Bat-fan
“I don’t think they are making them an elevated art form. I think it’s still Batman running around in a stupid cape… [A] superhero movie, by definition, you know, it’s comic book. It’s for kids. It’s adolescent in its core. That has always been its appeal, and I think people who are saying, you know, “Dark Knight Rises†is, you know, supreme cinema art,†I don’t think they know what the f**k they’re talking about.”
Fact.
16. History through Batmobiles
A quite frankly beautiful photograph, used to help tee up the Batmobile Documentary.. Amaze.
17. Super cool Batman Spray Can Art is super cool
I love this so hard
18. New Mondo Batcave poster
The mood (and detail) of this is fantastic. Good job.
19. Shanghai Batman
Shang. Hai. Bat. Man.
…and Bane.
…and Catwoman.
HIT. PLAY. NOW.
…and I’m spent.
Liked that? Tell your friends with the buttons below —
007, in IMAX.
My phone has new wallpaper.
Creative print advertising on the tube shocker. 2012 edition.
While the above ad isn’t as inventive (or as contextually aware) as the awesome Limitless Clear Pill ads from early last year, the above ad for the new Total Recall film (yes, another re-make) the similarities between the two still shine through – and I like it.
Let’s start with the basics: the above ad is not for Total Recall. No no. It is for the entirely fictional company [from the film] ‘Rekall‘.
Using real world reference points for what is a very futuristic film is a touch of genius, I love it. There are two main variants on the ad, one puts you as a football star and the other gifts you women and a yacht.
“Tell us your fantasy,” the ad says “We’ll make it real*”
– the asterisk is used to perfection
Why else does this work?
1. Title [or lack thereof]
If you slap ‘Total Recall’ on anything the first question that’d pop into anyone’s head is ‘Where’s Arnie?’. The original film is such an iconic sci-fi of its generation; it’s cheesy as hell and some of its Paul-Verhoeven-directed moments are stalwarts of early 90s pop-culture. Getting over that is not easy. So just ignore it! If we don’t mention the original, we won’t get the Schwarzenegger mind pop! Win!
 2. They make it REAL
As I mentioned, it uses real world fantasies to bring the message home and to pique commuters’ interest. I love the idea of fictional companies advertising fictional products from the films that they feature in and communicating this in the way – making it real, if you will – works perfectly.
How could it be better?
First and foremost the ad doesn’t work as hard as the Limitless efforts from March 2011. The two call to actions (one web, one Twitter) are semi-usable in our new kind-of-online London Underground BUT I don’t think its strong enough to warrant an online only response. There’s no recognition that you’re without mobile signal, and for that REKALL lose points.
Overall though, it’s a good effort and hey, I’m blogging about it!
Grade: B+
Better than most, but still room for improvement.
Notes:
Bond. James Bond.
I’ve already waxed lyrical about why Skyfall looks set to be bloody fantastic and now Bats is over, it’s all about Bond.
The latest trailer just dropped and, well, watch it for yourself –
Warning: trailer contains plot points you may not want to know
Alright, it gives a bit of the plot away…
…but holy hell, at last we might have a proper villain.
Immense.
No spoilers…
It’s here.
It’s finally effing here.
And it is EPIC.
There have been nay-sayers, there have been fanboys – cough – but throughout there has always been Nolan. Enduring Nolan. Amazing Nolan. Nolan and his unflinching commitment to delivering the best telling of the Batman story he could could possibly tell.
I am here to tell you that he delivers against that commitment.
Deftly wrapping up all the threads that were laid in Begins and TDK, Rises is a film of EPIC proportions. It’s Nolan and Bale, obviously, but there’s newcomers like Tom Hardy, Marion Cotilliard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt too, each splashing the film with their own shades of Inception… Â but ultimately, this is Bane’s film.
Tom Hardy is excellent in DKR; knowing, knowledgable, physical – he owns the screen whenever he appears. Another great addition to the cast, somewhat surprisingly, is Anne Hathaway. I don’t know why, but I had my doubts about her role as Selina Kyle’s cat burglar from the moment her casting was first announced but, honestly? She’s ace. Returning to Hardy briefly before moving on, I’m happy to report that the issues with his voice (that were first reported after the 7min preview back in December), have been fixed and the character of Bane oozes through Hardy with animalistic strength and menacing determination.
Remember, for the Dark Knight to rise, first he must fall. And fall he does – in spectacular fashion. In Bane, Batman truly has met his match.
This isn’t the Batman that you’ve got to know through the previous two films, mind. First in story: time has passed [eight years in fact] and a lot has happened. Before Bale dons the cowl in this final chapter, we’re made all too aware of the damage that leading the kind of life Bruce Wayne leads can have. Second, in tone: the 160+ mins are of a completely different breed than what’s come before. Nolan has grown both as a director and storyteller and we, the audience, get a much more mature and visceral cinema experience because of it.
But let’s be clear, Dark Knight Rises is a film of endings. Not in a LOTR: Return of the King ‘lets-end-the-film-five-times-over-the-course-of-an-hour’ kind of way, but in a closing of chapters, tying up of loose ends and the release of deep, set tension and pain way. Whatever Warner Bros do with the Batman licence next, it won’t be a part of this universe, that’s for certain.
There are niggles, few, but most can be plastered over by the sheer courage of the director’s vision to create such an epic conclusion to this trilogy.
When the credits rolled, I cheered and applauded as the final pay off comes together, perfectlty.
See it.
Immediately.
You’re gonna love it…
Or how 21 Jump Street ruined everything…
I first blogged about The Amazing Spider-Man (TASM) back in May and while I wasn’t overly stoked about it, it still looked set to be a fairly good stab at rebooting the franchise.
Yes, we all know it’s only been five years since we last saw Spidey grace the big screen (the poorly-received Spider-Man 3 not giving Toby McGuire the best of send-offs)
Sony decided to waive Spider-Man 4 and move straight into a retelling of the radioactive arachnid him goodbye in the poorly-received Spider-Man 3) and while we may not be ready… Nope, start over…
And whilst I still maintain Spidey 2 was the best of that trilogy (and arguably one of the best superhero movies ever made), Spider-Man 4 never appeared and instead, well… instead we get this
 YAWN YAWN YAWN YAWN YAWN YAWN
Let’s cut to the chase:
The Amazing Spider-Man (TASM) doesn’t tell us anything new and, while it does present us with a fresh (and quite capable) Peter Parker, the film is poorly directed, the villain poorly executed, and overall – the cast struggle with a mis-firing plot that doesn’t really ever deliver; especially when *previously seen* parts of the film [ie: in trailers, teasers etc] have actually been removed from the final cut.
And here’s the kicker: the more I think about it the more I realise the one over-riding thing that killed TASM for me.
Ready?
With me? No? OK, I’ll try it a different way.
21 Jump Street RUINED The Amazing Spider-Man
…and I’ll tell you how
24hrs before I went to see TASM, I sat down with the girl and decided to give the Channing Tatum/Jonah Hill cops-as-students, TV-to-film re-make, comedy vehicle a go.
AND IT WAS GREAT.
Brilliant in fact. So surprisingly funny/hilarious that the GF and I were both actually quite stunned at how bloody good it was.
Bear with me, this is actually going somewhere…
Here’s the rub [minor spoilers ahead], the plot of 21 Jump Street centres around a couple of cops being sent back to school to uncover a suspected drugs ring. However, one of the key parts of said tale is that our heroes actually used to be at school together. one of them (Tatum) was the atypical high school jock and popular kid and the other (Hill) was johnny-no-mates geek who hung around with nerds and basically failed in all things female related.
So far, so what… well, that first part – of the two being at High School together – is set in 2007. Five years later, they’ve become cops, made friends [with each other] and are assigned this undercover gig. Except, something has happened.
GLEE has happened.
Thanks to the super-popular American musical/comedy/drama (dramusedy?) American TV series, roles have been reversed:
Geek is cool.
It’s a great plot point in 21 Jump Street and yet it creates a HUGE plot hole in The Amazing Spider-Man. Geeks are cool. Ergo, Peter Parker is cool. Especially if your Peter Parker looks just like the hugely not unattractive Andrew Garfield. It just doesn’t add up. Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) fancies him, and rightly so – but you kinda think that she would whether he got bit by a radioactive spider or not.
That aside, the two do have a sparky relationship and there’s obviously a decent chemistry. However, that’s about all I can find that’s good about TASM I’m afraid.
The film’s villain, the woefully mis-cast Rhys Ifans as Dr Curt Connors – aka The Lizard – is clumsily realised and comes across as a bad amalgamation of previous Spider-Man bad guys, Green Goblin and Dr Octopus (whilst never actually managing to get near either when it comes to actual menace).
Also, while we’re on the subject: WHAT’S WRONG WITH THESE PICTURES?
Yes. One is of a mutated lizard man and one is a of man in a lizard suit.
Guess which one they use in the film?
Moving on, here are some other things that didn’t amaze me (whited out as they contain Spidey-spoilers)
In closing:
Whilst The Amazing Spider-Man isn’t that amazing, it isn’t actually that bad either. Yes, it’s too soon to reboot the franchise (obviously), but it does manage to lay enough ground for [hopefully] decent sequels. Sam Raimi’s original trilogy never really took itself too seriously and, while Garfield’s Spider-Man brings the wit, the rest of the film could do well to learn from his comedy timing.
In a year that sees quite possibly the two largest chapters in comic book film history come to a head (see Avengers and Dark Knight Rises), The Amazing Spider-Man really does struggle to stand tall amongst the crowd.
Here’s hoping future installments deliver on the early promise [that at least some of] the cast have shown.
Whatley out…
No, it’s the new poster for Man of Steel!
The jury is still well and truly out for me on this one. No John Williams score, no reference to the originals (per the underrated Superman Returns); they’re starting from scratch and there’s only one of two ways this can go –
Up up and away, or death by Kryptonite.
Only time will tell.
Last week, Robbie managed to snag some tickets to see a couple of films at the British Film Institute (BFI). I’m fairly sure he told me at the time that it didn’t matter if we missed the first one, just don’t miss the second one. I’m also quite certain that Robbie also told me what made the second film so special, but for some reason it completely slipped my mind.
I was running late, after a project overran at the office, and so barely made it time. Following the usher’s light along the gangway, I quickly found my seat and found myself wondering how on Earth I’d never actually been to see anything at the BFI before (the cinema was gorgeous). Robbie was already sat down, and the film had just got going. I couldn’t remember what we were seeing, or even why we were seeing it.
Perfect.
Shot in the late 90s for a budget of around $6000(!!), Following is a feature film just over an hour in length. Our protagonist is a wannabe author who, as the title of the film suggests, as a rather dark habit of following people. Over the next 60mins or so, we find out what happens when someone follows you back…
Set in a world before mobile technology changed our collective lives, Following has a somewhat timeless feel to it that you can’t quite shake. It’s recent, but not too recent.. if you get my meaning? It doesn’t matter. What I’m saying it is: it feels old, when it isn’t really that old.
And that’s a good thing.
The acting is little am-dram (and actually reminded me quite considerably of a film I shot around the same time), and our leading man only seems to have one gear but… BUT… the pacing and storytelling are excellent. The film twists and turns and eventually, as each part of the story unfolds through a series of flashforwards and flashbacks, you realise where it’s been taking you all along. Nicely done.
But here’s the rub. When the credits rolled, the first thing I spotted was ‘Christopher Nolan‘ as writer/director…
‘Oh look,’ I said to Robbie ‘Nolan!’, he looked at me like an idiot and said ‘Yes, don’t you remember? That’s why we’re here,’ and THEN I remembered:
Following was written and directed none other than Christopher Nolan. It was his first feature in fact. Robbie had bagged us tickets to see a cinematic showing of one of my favourite director’s first films and I’d utterly forgot! It was an awesome surprise of immense proportions.
My brain started racing:wait, yes! the pacing, the jumping back and forth, the twists, the reveals, the characters… Christ, even a guy named ‘Cobb’… it’s all there!
One of my favourite, absolute favourite things about being so in love with film is the study of the fingerprints that each director leaves on their body of work, and how those prints grow over of time. Look closely and you begin to pick up tell-tale marks, sleight-of-hand moments, certain light & composition choices, word-play, directorial decisions that completely change the way you, the viewer, experience the art you’re consuming.
Being able to view creativity evolve over time is nothing short of exhilarating and – especially with an artist such as Nolan – diving into their earliest works is always the best place to start spotting where that vision, that passion, is at its most raw and purest form.
In this instance it is abundantly clear: without Following there would be no Memento, no Prestige, no Inception. In fact, as a precursor to Memento in-particular, Following could be viewed as a way into Nolan’s style of writing and directing.
And I love it for it.
Following isn’t a great film. It’s different, yes, but not excellent. However, as an insight into the early creative sparks of one of the greatest storytellers of our generation, it is unmissable.
Thanks Robbie, you made my night.
whatleydude.com 