Dear Friends,
Here is another bulletin full of interesting posibilities. Theatre
shows, Music Gigs, Workshops, Auditions, Castings, Conferences, and
lots of other things. Hope you find it useful!
Best wishes,
Marcus
Entire concerts from excellent acts… from National Public Radio site.
If you have iTunes, just click on th elink and then click on the iTunes icon. Incredible stuff. Loads of really good bands playing loads of really good music.
What more could you ask for?
After seeing The Dark Knight myself and Eoin had a long chat about where a third film might go. We discussed the universe Christopher Nolan had created and what Batman villains remained that could work in his reality.
Empire Online listened into our conversation, then went back in time and published it on their website - the result being a great article on what Batman baddies could work for the third installment and who might play them…
It’s a tricky question, many of the Batman villains aren’t quite big enough to hold a Summer blockbuster - but then again, isn’t that what we would have said of Ra’s Al Ghul?
The problem is that with Heath Ledger’s Joker, and Aaron Eckhart’s Two Face fresh in our minds it’s hard to see how they could be competed with, but enough time will have passed in the meantime to allow us to settle into a potentially lower key but just as compelling film which focussed even more on the drama than the high octane action (see my quibbles with The Dark Knight movie).
So what would my suggestion be?
Well, I love Empire’s idea of Toby Jones as the Penguin - as myself and Eoin discussed he could be far less cartoonish and much more mob underworld figure. This would also potentially allow for the detective aspects of Batman’s character to emerge more fully.
Another idea, which could run in tandem with the Penguin would be to bring on the women. In a way it’s a shame that Selina Kyle (Catwoman), Pamela Isley (Poison Ivy) and Talia Al Ghul (Ra’s daughter) haven’t in some way been established in the franchise, because it would be the perfect change of direction, so as not to be competing with the themes of the Dark Knight. 
The tension that could be created both romantically and adversarially(?!) could be very interesting, with Bruce Wayne’s interest in Selina Kyle, Poison Ivy’s ability to bend Bruce Wayne/Batman to her will and Talia’s romantic interest in Bruce Wayne fighting with her interest in revenge for her father.
I’m not usually a fan of throwing too many villains into the mix in one film, but still… how about this… Penguin steps in to fill the void created by the departure of the Joker and begins to whip the mob back into shape. He teams up with Poison Ivy as potentially the only one who can bend Batman to their will - something the public are all too eager to believe as Batman is now their scapegoat. 
Meanwhile Catwoman is on the lookout for some easy cash to be made in the intervening chaos, and ends up caught between Batman and the Mob as she plays both sides…
If you really wanted to you could throw Talia in for good measure, as the uneasy relationship develops between Batman and Catwoman, Talia is throwing herself at Bruce Wayne who is tempted in his recent grief to seek comfort in her arms, only to discover that while she has developed feelings for him her real aim is to destroy him.
That’s a lot of character establishment for one movie though, and Nolan - if he does a third installment - will probably surprise us with somehting completely out of left field. What about no super villain, just Batman vs the mob in true detective style?
What do you think? The person who comments the closest to what gets made will get a Popcorn and a Coke on me!
What a Summer for us Superhero fans - Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and now The Dark Knight . Iron Man was fun, The Incredible Hulk was great until the CGI kicked in, but overall it has to be said Batman wins.
I’m very glad Christopher Nolan took over the Batman movies. When Tim Burton did Batman he did a great job, but it wasn’t the Batman I really wanted to see. Burton managed to roll a bit of everything up into one package, but perhaps just a little too much of the 60’s tv series got in the mix - as if the top fell off the shaker by accident when he was cooking it up…
The Batman I wanted to see was primarily Frank Miller’s Batman. Year One and The Dark Knight Returns. Batman Begins, Nolan’s first Batman film, certainly borrowed from Year One - and as a result I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the film where the slow unfurling of the character echoed Miller’s world stylistically, but I soon lost interest in the latter half of explosions and bombs and screaming and panic and general Hollywood finale.
Batman Begins was like a tease - look what we could give you, a gritty realistic Batman who exists in a world so like yours… but in the end you’ll still get an overblown, overdone explosion of Hollywood blockbuster muck.
It made me wonder though, if perhaps the next installment would have more confidence to stay the course and veer away from the Hollywood standard fare.
The Dark Knight certainly does several degrees better than it’s predecessor in this regard. The Dark Knight’s opening scene has been widely hailed as masterful, and rightly so. It’s perfect. It’s beautiful. It’s how it should be.
It’s a pity that the film doesn’t quite entirely hold onto the total and quite scary realism of the opening scenes but at least it never quite lets them go entirely either.
There are a couple of plot devices that were unnecessary, a couple of misplaced ‘humourous’ lines, and some completely unnecessarilly unbelievable technology which took from the overall brilliance of the film.
The film also suffers from a malady that almost all Summer blockbusters are infected with - a fear of letting the drama in the film breathe, lest the audience attention wander elsewhere. As a result some of the psychological or moral conundrums are either somewhat glossed over and upstaged by an action setpiece, or need to be over signposted to avoid same.
However, where Batman Begins borrowed from Year One, the moral and psychological issues in The Dark Knight are nicely lifted from The Dark Knight Returns, and it can’t be denied that this film is probably as close to Frank Miller’s Batman as Hollywood will allow any Summer Blockbuster to be - and so perhaps I shouldn’t complain.
And of course you have Heath Ledger’s Joker. I was sceptical. I expected a slightly darker immitation of Jack Nicholson’s Joker, I expected not to be impressed. I was wrong.
Nicholson did a perfect job for the Burton film, but Burton’s was not the Batman universe I was interested in. For me, Heath Ledger embodied the Joker flawlessly. This is how the Joker always was in my mind.
The Dark Knight borrows from The Dark Knight Returns, and Ledger borrows from The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum to create a truly believable psychopathic supervillain.
Ledger is certainly the shining star of the film, and it would be so even if he had not tragically passed away before the film was released, but the film is full of strong performances. Aaron Eckhart is perfect as Harvey Dent, and I only wish Caine and Oldham had a few more strong scenes.
Christian Bale continues to do a great brooding Batman/Bruce Wayne, but as John McCarthy said to me today, Nolan’s genius is in making this feel like a film about Gotham rather than a film about Batman.
Go see it on the big screen. Twice.
Liverpool today unveiled new signing Robbie Keane, from Spurs, to complete their striking incomings.
Since the sale of Peter Crouch the pressure has been on for Benitez to bring in another known striker. Keane, however, is a very different type of footballer to Crouch so it is interesting to note that Benitez also added 19 year old French striker David Ngog.
At the time of Ngog’s signing many thought he would be another player for the future but Rafa has confirmed that he will be involved in the first team games in the season ahead, much like Lucas last season. Read the rest of this entry »
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