TV

Starlings
1x02 Episode Two

Superstar
1x05 The First Elimination
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Films

Batman Begins (2005)
[3rd watch]

As I've decided to cover this Bat-series re-watch on 100 Films now I'll say some more about this film there (on Friday, I should imagine), but now I want to make a comment about the way it uses Gotham City.

Primarily, I think it's important to note what a fine job Nolan does of making Gotham City another character in the film. All of the Batman films have done this to some degree -- it was Burton's stated aim to make Gotham "the third character" in his first effort -- but by giving the city recognisable landmarks, districts, a true sense of history and on-going interrelations, it feels like a real place. And those recognisable landmarks continue into The Dark Knight (the split-level roads, the Narrows and it's bridges, even if the vital-to-the-plot elevated railway completely disappears between films), cementing the importance of this cityscape.

I do hope this continues into The Dark Knight Rises. I've already read one review that said they should've named the final film Gotham City, so I'm optimistic.

Articles

Review of The Dark Knight Rises by Nev Pierce (from Empire)
and
Review: The Dark Knight Rises closes out Nolan's trilogy with brains and bombast by Drew McWeeny (from Motion Captured at HitFix)

A pair of great, spoiler-free reviews of the new Batman film. Really looking forward to this, so much so that I've booked a ticket and it'll be my first cinema trip in over a year. And now I intend to avoid reading too many (or any) further reviews, just in case.

In other TDKR news:


The Dark Knight Rises -- This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
by Matt Atchity (from Rotten Tomatoes)

With reviews coming in, Rotten Tomatoes has gone insane... kinda literally. Not the site itself, but it's users/commentators, which has led the site to take some action. Official statement-y thing here should give you an idea what's been going on, but I first read about it somewhere else so in case my foreknowledge led me to think this was more thorough than it is, what you need to know was there were a raft of positive reviews and a single negative one, which attracted thousands (I do believe it was literally thousands) of comments, most of them abusive stuff from people who hadn't even seen the film.

And then some 'real' critic posted a negative comment linking to something that wasn't a review because he hadn't even seen the film. It was something to do with making a point about how no RT commentators even bother to click through and read the whole review, but it seems this wasn't appreciated by RT's management. Not necessarily wrongly.

Dark Knight Girl Rises With The Dragon Tattoo

Trailer footage for The Dark Knight Rises set to Immigrant Song from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trailer?

More awesome than it sounds, and it sounds awesome.