Batman

More box office records crumbled as Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight continued its vertiginous climb. Heath Ledger's psychotic Joker seduced viewers nationwide to the tune of $75.6 million this weekend, making his movie the country's favorite once again—and by a $45.6 million margin. Here in Gotham's real-world counterpart, The Dark Knight claimed $1.1 million in sales—a full $772,704 over second-place Step Brothers.

The Times tells us The Dark Knight's $75.6 million is "the best second-weekend gross in recent Hollywood history." (An impressive figure for sure, though we wonder just how "recent.") And with $314.2 million in domestic sales since its July 18 opening, The Dark Knight also scored a record for the highest-grossing opening ten days in Hollywood history.  read more »

MONDAY

The new Batman flick, The Dark Knight, opened this weekend to rave reviews, sold out crowds and a record-breaking performance at the box office—it took in $155.34 million, according to the Associated Press, surpassing the $151.1 million Spider-Man 3 made on its opening weekend a little over a year ago. When a blockbuster generates this much hype, the networks can cash in with primetime tie-ins that appeal to TV-addicts regardless of whether or not they've actually seen the movie. It starts tonight with The Dark Knight's predecessor, Batman Begins, on FX at 5 p.m. Then at 9, turn to the History Channel for Batman Tech, which answers the question posed by the Joker in the original 1989 remake of Batman: "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"  read more »

Two things were noticeable about the line of people awaiting the 12:01 a.m. Lincoln Square cinema premiere of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight.

First, the affinity most of the waiting masses appeared to feel with the Caped One; second, the bizarre impression many of the waiting seemed to have that they had seen the movie already.

Brandeis University student Andrew Litwin called The Dark Knight "probably one of the most amazing movies I've ever seen."

"I'm not, like, at all obsessed," he said. "I mean I haven't read all the comics and all that … because I haven't had enough money to buy all the comics.  read more »

There’s a moment in the new Batman movie The Dark Knight when the action—which relentlessly pounds, soars, twists and turns for a full two and a half hours—slows down for one brief and strangely beautiful instant. The Joker—certainly one of the more villainous, terrifying and electric characters to come our way in some time—speeds through Gotham’s sleek, gray streets, his head hanging out of a cop car window, eyes softly shut, mutilated face turned skyward, stringy and matted green hair flattened by wind. Chaos is under way, hope is dimming, the future looks grim … and the Joker is just enjoying the breeze.  read more »

THE DARK KNIGHT
RUNNING TIME 152 minutes
WRITTEN BY Christopher and Jonathan Nolan
DIRECTED BY Christopher Nolan
STARRING Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal

Some folks take metaphysical pleasure from the New Batman Philosophy According to Christopher Nolan: that good and evil lurk side by side in everyone, including Batman. But in my opinion, every Batman movie is about only one thing: action hero (the caped crusader with wings) vs. bad guys (everyone else). Writer-director Nolan’s Batman Begins, with its surreal and mystical mumbo jumbo about playboy Bruce Wayne’s beginnings, remains the worst Batman movie I’ve ever seen, although the comic-book addicts disagree.  read more »

THE DARK KNIGHT
RUNNING TIME 152 minutes
WRITTEN BY Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan
DIRECTED BY Christopher Nolan
STARRING Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman

Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, from a screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, based on a story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, is, of course, ultimately from a series of comic books published by DC Comics, with the creation of the Batman character attributed to Bob Kane. In the world of comic-book superheroes, the Batman franchise has specialized in the most eccentrically colorful villains. I still remember Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne/Batman character looking out of the corner of his eye at Jack Nicholson’s clownish antics as the Joker in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, the second such cinematic transfer after Laslia Martinson’s 1966 Batman, with Adam West reprising in a campy fashion his hit television role.  read more »

“I related most to Batman,” said 56-year-old movie producer Michael Uslan of his childhood comic-book tastes, “because Batman’s greatest superpower was humanity.” Mr. Uslan, like many baby boomers, grew up an avid comic-book reader. But his fandom didn’t stop at 18. As an adult, he parlayed his love of Batman into a successful career in the movie business, producing all five of the most recent Batman movies. His sixth, The Dark Knight, staring Christian Bale and the late Heath Ledger, opens this July.

But Mr. Uslan has a comic-related side career, too, as a comic-art collector. Forget those Cindy Sherman prints, or combing Chelsea walls in search of the next Kara Walker: wealthy ex-nerds looking to make an arty purchase are snubbing the mainstream art world, throwing their bucks at their childhood heros and creating an investment market where there wasn’t one before.  read more »

New York City does not have a nickname (in the official sense) and the latest Batman installment The Dark Night is coming to movie theaters this summer. What does one have to do with the other you ask?

A trio of City Councilmen thinks New York should capitalize on the blockbuster-generated publicity wave coming soon so they have introduced a resolution designating New York City’s new nickname “Gotham City," just in time for the caped crusader to grace cinema screens across the country.  read more »