Plot details for Star Wars: Rogue One reveal that the rumored Death Star connection is in fact at the center of the 2016 spinoff. This means the events will take place between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, which is simultaneously exciting and worrying.
Tribeca Film Festival continues this week, closing on April 26th. Western-themed highlights of this year’s festival include William Monahan’s Mojave and the Michael Fassbender frontier flick Slow West.
John Michael McDonagh’s follow-up to last year’s excellent Cavalry, a New Mexico-set black comedy called War on Everyone, began filming this week. Check out the first image over at Empire.
Stephen King’s The Dark Tower is getting “fast-tracked” — whatever that means nowadays — at Sony Pictures. The fantasy series has long been rumored for a film adaptation and had Ron Howard attached as director at one point, but now it sounds like it might actually get made.
As his latest film Furious 7 continues box office domination, director James Wan is now rumored for DC’s Aquaman film. According to a consortium of critics known as Me, if the DC Cinematic Universe has a more cohesive storyline then they should be able to stray in tone and mood from Zack Snyder’s pout-fests without seeming out-of-place. The more unique the directorial vision, the better.
The complete Star Wars saga is now available for the first time in Digital HD, just in time to watch all six movies a dozen more times before The Force Awakens comes out.
Daniel Craig has sustained an injury on the set of the new Bond film Spectre, prompting surgery and much nail-biting over whether the filming schedule will be delayed or compressed. Eon has denied that rumor. And besides, judging by last week’s trailer, we’ve no reason not to trust that Craig and Sam Mendes will deliver.
Tom Hardy has let slip that he’s signed on for three more Mad Max films following Fury Road, which hits theaters next month. Bring on the Tina Turner cameo!
Netflix has renewed House of Cards for a fourth season (surprise!) and their newest series Bloodline for a second season.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 starts filming early next year in…Atlanta. The plot will presumably see Groot and Co. honing their Deep South sensibilities. Karen Gillan’s Nebula is set to return, too, hopefully for a much larger role this time around.
The Affair took home a few surprise awards at the Golden Globes this past weekend, including Best Drama Series (beating out the likes of Game of Thrones and House of Cards) and a Best Actress trophy for Ruth Wilson. Dominic West was nominated as well, but lost out to Kevin Spacey for Cards. As a consolation prize (and because episode six was very much The Dominic West Show), this review will be very Noah-centric. You’re welcome, Dominic.
We catch up with Noah as his best friend Max visits him out in Montauk. They go drinking, clubbing, and guess who they meet during their night of revelry? I may have said this before, but Noah and Alison running into each other constantly just seems a bit contrived. This time, though, that aspect is at least partially left to the imagination. Noah plays it like he has no idea who Alison is, for the sake of appearances in front of family friend Max — but as Max’s taxi pulls away from the club later that night, Noah spins and scampers back up the stairs like a child on Christmas (in reverse) and promptly and passionately kisses Alison. So it could have been the case that this particular run-in wasn’t at all accidental, and Noah’s getting more and more bold in his fling. More importantly, West absolutely nails that giddy super-romantic childlike glee.
Most of the comic book influences on Batman Begins are fairly evident. Everyone points to Frank Miller’s Year One, the redefining four-part series that put the “Dark” back in Dark Knight, and they’re right to hold that book up as the major influence. Begins relies heavily on Year One for a number of things, not least among them the exploration of the Bruce Wayne/Jim Gordon relationship, the exploration of the Bruce Wayne/Alfred relationship, the Gotham Monorail, the mention of the Joker at the end, the entire character of Flass, the entire sequence where Batman calls a squadron of bats to his aid (a bat-talion, am I right? Guys?) and, of course, the entire bat-flies-through-window genesis of the hero himself.
So Year One is the obvious one. Nolan and David Goyer pilfered little things from other famous Bat-books as well, often just an image or a line of dialogue. Here’s the Scarecrow in Loeb and Sale’s The Long Halloween, another popular arc:
The Long Halloween (1996/97)
Goyer brought this to Nolan and said “I think Katie Holmes and the little kid who will eventually grow up to be Joffrey from Game of Thrones would look really good if we added them in front of the horse here” (paraphrased) and Nolan said “true dat, brah” (not paraphrased) and ran with it:
Batman Begins (2005)
The red eyes and flames are an admittedly nice touch.
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