I’ve been excited for The Dark Knight for months. Ever since the first Joker cards appeared at Comic-Con last year, I’ve wanted to see this movie. I loved Batman Begins and I just knew Christopher Nolan had it in him to make an even better movie. With all the origin story out of the way, he could focus on some more interesting plot lines and villains, like of course the Joker.

I’m not going to write a full review of this movie. By now you’ve already decided if you want to see The Dark Knight or not, and there are tons of reviews floating around the internet already. Instead I want to share my thoughts on a couple of things, some spoilerish, some not, some not even about the movie itself, but the circumstances in which I saw it. Don’t worry I’ll announce spoiler territory in a big and obvious manner.

Booking Tickets

Here in the UK The Dark Knight came out last Thursday and I had tickets for the IMAX on Friday afternoon. If you tried to book tickets last week, you would have noticed the next four weeks at the Imax are practically sold out. So how did I get such early tickets? I wasn’t lucky or extra alert or anything. Remember my great adventure with The Dark Knight ARG? The plan was to meet-up with all the people participating and see the movie at the IMAX together. A Facebook group was formed and one of the guys called the IMAX to see when the tickets would be released and if it was possible to book for 40/50 people. At the time they said we could, but somehow a day before the ticket release date, they pulled out, claiming they couldn’t do such a large booking. Bullshit, if you ask me. But anyhow, I got a nice reminder on the day itself that the tickets were released. Even then I didn’t book straight away, only to discover two days later that a lot of the tickets for the first four days were already gone. Eek!

Imax Experience

I managed to get tickets for the Friday showing in row L, seats 24 and 25 (check the floor plan here). I had never been to the Imax before, so I thought those seats would be too high up and you would look down on the screen. But they were perfect! We were bang in the middle, staring exactly at the center of the screen. And that wasn’t the only good part of the Imax. Back in January I wrote a post about 10 problems with today’s cinemas: bad projection quality, bad sound, too small relative screen size, just to name a few of the big problems. The Imax actually solves them all. You pay slightly more for a ticket than your average cinema, but it’s completely worth it. The quality you get in return is just so much better. From now on I want to see all the big movies in an IMAX theatre!

Then there’s of course the extra bonus of seeing the IMAX version of The Dark Knight, cause in total 28 minutes of the movie were filmed with IMAX cameras. So… what does that mean? Without getting into too technical terms, parts of the movie were filmed on a larger film, which obviously means a higher resolution and a bigger aspect ratio, but more importantly it actually results in a much better image quality, giving a clearer, crisper image. Those scenes that were shot with IMAX cameras are just plain gorgeous. Because of the different aspect ratio, you did notice when it switched from one to the other. The normal standard film has a letterbox size (2.40:1), while the IMAX scenes used the full screen (1.33:1). At the start of the film, it was a bit obvious; every single aerial view of Gotham City was IMAX, the standard plot and dialogue was letterbox. Later on in the movie though you barely noticed it. Most action sequences were filmed completely in IMAX and you really had the feeling it made a great difference.

Oscar Worthy?

You may have heard a lot of speculation on whether or not The Dark Knight should be nominated for any Oscars. The main buzz is about Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker (for Best Supporting Actor), but there are also some that find the movie itself should be nominated for Best Movie. You know my thoughts on the Oscars; genre movies never do well there and the voters are highly unappreciative of outstanding performances in genre movies, dismissing them almost always (I think Lord of The Rings is the last one that was nominated). Is The Dark Knight worthy of an Oscar? In my humble opinion, yes. But I don’t think it’s likely that it will get a Best Movie nomination; it was good, but I don’t think it will make such an impact (I’d like to be proven wrong though). Nominations for Cinematography, Visual Effects, Score, Make-Up (definitely) are way more likely.

And then we’ve got Heath Ledger. His performance as the Joker is exactly what Oscar voters like; it’s a real role you can disappear into and show that you’re “acting”. Think of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man or Javier Bardem in last year’s No Country For Old Men; those are roles where you can show off your acting chops and become a completely different person. I think the Academy will love Ledger’s Joker and chances are high he’ll get a nomination. Did Ledger’s death have anything to do with it? I’m not sure, I think in part. I think a lot of people who would have previously dismissed this movie, now gave it a chance because it’s Heath Ledger’s last film, and they discovered it was actually good. Would The Dark Knight have been viewed so many times, if Ledger hadn’t died? It’s a ‘What if’ scenario, we’ll never know the answer to.

After the image: beware spoilers!

Argh, here be SPOILERS!

Random Thoughts

Okay, did anyone else think that the scenario with the two boats and two bombs would end differently? I seriously thought that the “normal people” boat would decide to blow up the convicts boat, only to discover pushing the big red button blows their own ship up. After the Joker’s Dent/Rachel mix-trick, it felt as if it would veer that way. It would have fitted with the dark tone of the whole movie, right?

Is Dent dead or not? Yes, there was a memorial service like speech, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is dead. Three possibilities: a) it was a memorial service and Dent is dead, b) that wasn’t a memorial service, but something else, only to make the viewer believe Dent is dead (while he isn’t), and c) that was a memorial service, but Gordon (and Batman) want the people of Gotham City to believe Dent is dead. I think it’s the last option with Dent in somewhere in a cell in Arkham Asylum.

Was the name of ‘Coleman Reese’ chosen for a specific “deeper” meaning? Someone on a message board pointed out that “Mr Reese” is pronounced “misterees” as in “mysteries”. Hmm, a prelude to the Riddler? Or just coincidence?

Next Movie?

As I said in the previous paragraph, I think Dent is alive and I think he’ll be the main villain for the next movie. But seeing how Christopher Nolan rolls (he likes twos), there’ll also be another villain, but who? Following the line of thought from above, my first guess would be The Riddler. The character of Reese seems to be set up here with the potential of a fuller story. Personally I’d love to see the Riddler, but preferably someone else (not Reese, and not that actor). And just imagine what Nolan’s Riddler would be like… 

So people: have you seen The Dark Knight already? And if so, any random thoughts or musings about future movies you want to share with us?

Last Saturday Cristiano and I met up with Carlo, Fabiana and their friend Daniel in Portobello Road. Fabiana made this cool photo of me:

Melinda by Fabiana Zonca on Flickr.

I like how the shadows play on my skin and how everything is dark except me. I want to say I was thinking of something insightful or ‘searching my soul’ (as I call this picture), but to be honest: most probably I’m trying to figure out what tiles on the ground I should step on.

A lot of trailers came out last week during Comic-Con, but almost none of them are available yet in a non-crappy-YouTube version. So don’t expect to find those here; I won’t link to that type of stuff. I mean: don’t you want to see a cool trailer as best as possible? Anyhow I’ve got a whole bunch of other trailers for you to enjoy:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
This looks like an amazing movie. Adapted from a short story from F. Scott Fitzgerald, it stars Brad Pitt as a man who ages backwards, starting his life as an old man and slowly aging back becoming a child. It looks beautiful and weird and magnificent all at the same time. [Trailer]

Bottle Shock
I hadn’t heard about this Sundance movie before, but it’s got a great cast: Chris Pine, Alan Rickman, Bill Pullman, Rachael Taylor, Eliza Dushku and Freddy Rodriguez. It’s about a small Californian vineyard who in the early seventies tries to compete with the snobby French wines. [Trailer] 

Transporter 3
I still haven’t seen the first two Transporters, but this looks like fun! Again it stars Jason Statham as Frank Martin, a guy specialized in moving “goods”. Expect a lot of fast paced action and bullet flying. [Trailer]

Death Race
Another Jason Statham movie. This time he plays a convict who is forced to compete in a deadly car race. I think the trailer gives too much away (although it was expected that it would be a predictable action movie). [Trailer]

Miracle at St. Anna
You know I’m not the war movie type; lots of drama, lots of dying, not my thing. But this movie looks unique enough to try out. Directed by Spike Lee, it’s about a group of black American soldiers who get trapped behind enemy lines in a Tuscan village during WWII. [Trailer]

Punisher: War Zone
Two trailers, two visions. The teaser is very mild; lots of people pointing and shooting guns at each other, but that’s it’s. The Red Band trailer is as gory as they come; heads exploding, impalement, lots and lots of blood. Question is: which vision will the movie take on? [Teaser] [Red Band Trailer]

RocknRolla
I don’t care that much for Guy Ritchie’s movies; even though I’ve never fully seen one of his movies, I just don’t have the patience to sit through something I know I won’t like anyway. RocknRolla seems more of the same. It’s about a couple of tough guys that get in a bad situation, who then have to find money to get out of that bad situation. Oh yeah, and there’s always some robbery of something valuable. [Trailer]

The Spirit
I want to like this movie, but this just didn’t look impressive at all. It’s written and directed by Frank Miller, who also wrote Sin City and 300, but I think he should have stuck to just the writing. At the moment it all seems a bit artsy and awkward and some of the characters seem off. I mean, I love Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson, but here they both looked cheesy. And what’s with those sideburns?! [Trailer]

Mirrors
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch Kiefer Sutherland again and not think ‘Jack Bauer’. Here he plays a security guard who has to deal with a mysterious evil force that’s coming through mirrors. Ooh, spooky. I haven’t actually seen the Red Band trailer; Cristiano saw it and said it was revolting, so I haven’t had the nerve to watch it. [Teaser] [Red Band Trailer]

Bolt
This Disney animation looks okay, but it will never be the movie it was supposed to be. Chris Sanders (from the brilliant Lilo & Stitch) wrote and created the plot of this movie (a dog who stars as a superhero in a TV show and thinks it’s real), but got thrown off the project. His version would have had a one-eyed cat and a radio-active rabbit! The basis remains the same, but the two side characters have been replaced by a “standard” cat and a cute hamster. [Trailer]

The Tale of Despereaux
Despereaux is a mouse that’s brave instead of frightened of all the usual stuff: knives, mousetraps and even cats. This animation looks kind of sweet, but would it ever have been made if Ratatouille wasn’t a success? Plus it’s a clear case of “let’s cast famous people with recognizable voices that don’t fit the character whatsoever”: Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Christoper Lloyd, Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, William H. Macy, Emma Watson, the list goes on and on. [Trailer]

The Princess and The Frog
I love the old school Disney 2D musical animations and I applaud Disney for attempting to bring it back. But this trailer? I’m not really impressed by it yet. [Trailer]

Disaster Movie
Why oh why do they keep making these type of movie? And who keeps on going to the cinema to watch this crap? [Trailer]

Visioneers
I’m not sure what to make of this movie; I think it’s supposed to be a comedy, but it’s got a weird depressing vibe going on. The trailer goes on for more than 3 minutes and leaves you kind of uninterested. [Trailer]

Not Quite Hollywood
Not Quite What I Expected. This is a documentary about the Ozploitation movies, the weird violence-sex-horror exploitation movies that were made in Australia in the 70s and 80s. [Trailer]

Quantum of Solace
I loved Casino Royale and Daniel Craig as James Bond. This trailer promises more of the same type of action, grittiness and romance. I’m still not convinced by the title though; I keep imagining ‘James Bond and The Quantum of Solace’, feels very Harry Potterish or Indy-ish. [Trailer]

Interesting links for July 28th through July 30th:

• Herb & Spice Dish Drying Rack by Ran Shnaper – Ooh, me likes this design, but knowing me the plants would die anyway. I once had a passionflower plant and I seriously tried my best to take care of it, giving it water everyday… yeah, even then it died pretty quickly 🙁
• Great Opening Sentences From Science Fiction – A list of cool interesting opening sentences from sci-fi books. I'd love to see a list like this of fantasy books too.
• Maghag: Lucy Liu Wins The Dumb Medal In Bazaar 's Fashion Olympics – Bizarre photoshoot from Bazaar with Lucy Liu dressed up in expensive clothes posing for different sports. I do like the Robin Hood bow-and-arrow thing, but the rest… meh.
• Capone Comes Face to Face (and Knee to Knee) With Paris Hilton about REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA — – Unexpected interesting interview with Paris Hilton. I so want to see Repo!

A couple of weeks ago I won a Tokyoflash watch via a contest on Geeks Are Sexy (btw those geeks rock!). It arrived last week, so I thought I’d do a small review of it.

The watch I got is of the red Tibida design and it looks great. It has a polished stainless steel case with a red face and a polyurethane wrist band. The cool geeky thing about Tokyoflash watches is that they all have a unique way of displaying the time to you. In Tibida’s case there are four different display options: hour-centric, minute-centric, binary and date.

In the hour-centric mode, the bottom half of the display (the two 5×3 LED grids) is used to show the hour, The minutes are showed in the top half (the 2×6 grid) with each LED representing 5 minutes (so 8 LEDs on is 40 min). WIth the minute-centric mode, it’s the other way around. The bottom half is used for the minutes, the top half for the hours. Here are examples of both of them:

The binary option is (of course) the geekiest of the bunch. It doesn’t use the bottom half at all, only using the top 12 LEDs to show the time in binary. Very cool, but not that handy if you quickly want to know the time (at least not yet for me, still have to train myself a bit better). The last option, date, simply shows the date today, with the month in the top half and the day in the bottom half.

So far I’ve just been listing facts, not really giving my opinion on it. To be honest, I’m not completely convinced by it. It’s a very cool watch, but I’m not sure it’s the best fit for me. For starters, the wrist band isn’t that comfortable. The problem is with the area where the face connects with the band; instead of forming a smooth round band around the wrist, the top part is on a slightly weird angle (as if the band doesn’t want to bend that way). Now it could be that my wrists are just too skinny or the plastic is still too stiff, but at the moment it won’t fit comfortably around my wrist. Weirdly enough it does fit around my wrist; normally, I have to puncture an extra hole in the band. I think though the Tibida will fit fine if you have a bit more wider wrist than me and maybe given some time it will fit me better too.

Another thing you must realize with this watch is that the LEDs only go on when you press the button. So that means every single time you want to look at the watch for the time, you’ll have to press that button. Besides that you can’t look at it from an angle, cause otherwise the LEDs don’t make much sense. You really have to look straight at it. They’re not really problems or “end-of-the-world” bad, but it’s a new type of flow you have to get into. 

On a personal note, I discovered I don’t use my watch to know the exact time, I use it to know how much time has passed or will pass. For this, I’m so stuck in my ways with an analogue clock, my brain is so used to processing the angles and quarters of a clock face. For instance, when I know something will take 15 minutes to do, but don’t know what time to start it, my mind will be constantly updating the image I have of a clockface and moving the quarter around.

Anyhow, the Tokyoflash watch doesn’t completely suit me… as a watch. I don’t see this replacing my standard (but boring) analog watch. But as a geek accessory though it’s fantastic. Plus it’s almost the right shade of Miss Geeky red, fitting perfectly with some of my clothes. While not completely what I expected I do love it, so expect seeing it on me at a future geek event!

Pssst, there are even more watches on the Tokyoflash site. Some of them are way crazier…

Episode 76: “Magic is all about directing attention”

Here’s a great TED talk about ‘Brain Magic’, deceiving and misdirecting the brain. It starts off with a cool trick, that I still haven’t figured out yet. Anyone care to explain?

Interesting links for July 25th through July 27th:

• Lost: Dharma Initiative Steals The Show At Lost Panel – Lost panel at Comic-Con with some interesting tidbits about next season. Some may consider them spoilers, but it seems more like theorizing (chances are it's just misdirection).
• Stargate Atlantis: The Crew Of Stargate Atlantis Answers Your Questions – Stargate Atlantis panel at Comic-Con with producer Martin Gero, Jewel Staite, Joe Flanigan (John Sheppard), Robert Picardo (Richard Woolsey) and writer Brad Wright.
• Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin' Blog: The Psychological Depth of a Bat-Villain – Some pondering about the psychological sides of Batman villains (especially the Joker and Two-Face).
• Thanks for the zombies, Jesus! » The Bloggess – Funny little piece from a blogster I recently discovered about an argument she had over the difference between resurrection and reanimation… in the context of zombies, and vampires.

I came across these cool jewelry designs called Batucada jewelry. They’re from an up-and-coming design company in France and some of the stuff is just so pretty.

The jewelry is made from an synthetic Eco-friendly rubber, creating a tattoo-like appearance when worn. Because of the material it’s also waterproof and sweat proof. They’re perfect as casual, but trendy everyday jewelry. 

Most of the designs are available in 5 different colours: classic black, moka, silver, gold and shiny purple. Furthermore, two bracelets can be attached to each other to form a choker.

Although they’re a French company I couldn’t discover any European sites that sell them. I did though find a US store that does called Brooklyn5and10. There all the necklaces cost $34.95 and the bracelets $19.95. Sadly they only deliver to the US (shipping is about $10), so I’ll have to wait till I find a store here.

Check out the Batucada website for more cool designs.

Episode 75: “It was the best of times…”

During Mashed a couple of us were asked to make some fake trailers to be shown before the midnight movie. Jane and I created this one: A Tale of Two Bean Bags (most credit goes to Jane for coming up with the idea).

A Tale of Two Bean Bags from Cristiano Betta on Vimeo.

There’s also a second trailer that I kind of wrote and directed, but nobody understand its (I’m a misunderstood film maker, sniff). I’ll post it in a couple of days, see if any of you can figure it out.

It’s only a couple more weeks/months until the new TV season, so promos and clips of the upcoming shows have been appearing online. Some of them are familiar old shows with clips, showing us what may happen to our favourite characters. Others are completely new, whose fate beyond the pilot may not even be decided yet. 

Gemini Division
This will be a new NBC produced web series, starring Rosario Dawson. She plays a New York cop who uncovers a global conspiracy involving the creation of simulated life forms, Sims. At the moment 50 episodes, each around 6 minutes long, have been planned, with a possible extension to 100 episodes. [Website]

Caprica
There’s been talk about this series for the past two years and now finally they’ve gone ahead with it. It’s a prequel of sorts to Battlestar Galactica, showing the creation and rise of the Cylons. The premise sounded really interesting to me, but after seeing this promo I’m not so sure. It somehow doesn’t feel sci-fi-y enough, only drama.

Fringe
I’ve actually seen this pilot already (review will follow) and it looks quite okay. It’s a new series from JJ Abrams (he of Felicity, Alias and Lost), focusing on fringe (pseudo) science.

 
Heroes
Unlike last year I’m not all that excited for Heroes. I was just so disappointed after last season; they had so many options and possible cool story lines, and instead it all turned out so, so… average. I’ll still watch it, but I’m hoping it will get better.

Life on Mars
The original Life on Mars was great, so why go and ruin it with a US version? This looks so bad and completely unnecessary. I’ve also heard rumours, they won’t be sticking to the original’s storyline, but want to make it a “deeper mystery”.

Pushing Daisies
I love Pushing Daisies, but this promo is worthless. You don’t even get to see anything from the new season!

Chuck
Now they know how to make some cool promos! First the Hellboy one and now these; I can’t wait till Chuck is back on TV.

Dollhouse
The new Joss Whedon series! I’m watching this no matter what, but as I said before I find the humour strangely lacking in this trailer. Where’s the funny, Joss? The clips of the episode shown in this trailer will actually be the second episode. Whedon just announced that his pilot was slightly confusing and jumping into the story straight away, so they’ve decided to keep that episode as the second and create a new episode in front of that, acting as the pilot.