HBO Max original film Inception was released July 13th, 2010.
#Inception cleared $836.5M at the international box office.
rottentomatoes: 87%
metacritic: 74
imdb: 8.8
oscars: 4 wins
golden globes: 4 nominations
SAG awards: 1 win
#PeakyBlinders
series 6 has been confirmed.
rottentomatoes: 91%
metacritic: N/A
imdb: 8.8
BAFTA: 3 wins
#PeakyBlinders has been renewed for a 5th season.
rottentomatoes: 95%
metacritic: N/A
IMDb: 8.8
BAFTA: 2 wins
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
Lorelai Gilmore
Missy Vaughn
Diane Johnson
Jake Peralta
Arnold Baumheiser
Lawrence
The final trailer has dropped for The Dark Knight Rises and I literally just got goosebumps. Ya. I’m a nerd. Christian Bale will be reprising his role as the caped crusader while bloody brit actor Tom Hardy will be playing primary villain Bane. Other newcomers include: Anne Hathaway as a mysterious Selina Kyle a.k.a. Catwoman, while Joseph Gordon Levitt plays John Blake or a possible Robin, and finally the beautiful Marion Cotillard plays Miranda Tate or a potential Talia Al Ghul. Big Boss Man Christopher Nolan has indeed done a good job keeping most of this stuff underwraps, as the film is his swan song to the Batman franchise. The film’s reportedly epic ending is on the utmost of DL, to the point that only Nolan and four other people know what it is. Why does this movie look so frikkin cool you ask? Because it’s about a good ol’ fashioned Artisan dogfight.
The Dark Knight Rises wrapped principal photography in New York last week and in a recent interview with Empire Magazine, Christopher Nolan discussed his final Batman film. Nolan revealed that the films’ events will be taking place 8 years after the events of the previous film, during a time when Bruce Wayne is “not in a great state”. He also talked about choosing Bane as the primary villain, saying that the goal was to test Batman both physically AND mentally. Since Bruce went and got everyone excited by going to ninja school in Batman Begins, some critics were largely disappointed with the lack of martial arts in The Dark Knight, which evidently will not be a problem in this film:
“He [Bane] is brutal. Brutal. He’s a big dude who’s incredibly clinical, in the fact that he has a result-based and oriented fighting style. It’s not about fighting. It’s about carnage. The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed, it’s nasty. Anything from small-joint manipulation to crushing skulls, crushing rib cages, stamping on shins and knees and necks and collarbones and snapping heads off and tearing his fists through chests, ripping out spinal columns. He is a terrorist in mentality as well as brutal action.” — Christopher Nolan
Well that sounds pretty dope Mr. Nolan. Thankyou for that. I think we’re all glad to see that this Batman franchise is finally headed in the right direction. The direction of ripping out peoples’ spinal cords. Regardless of whether that ends up in the movie or not lets take a look at Batman and his new nemesis Bane.
Bruce Thomas Wayne had the unfortunate luck of witnessing his parents murder when he was a child, an event that birthed his life goal of ridding Gotham City of evil. Bruce has since evolved into an arrogant billionaire industrialist and notorious playboy by day, and a ruthless masked vigilante by night. Characterized by his physical prowess and technical ingenuity, Batman ‘strikes terror into the hearts of criminals everywhere’. Indeed Bruce Wayne is a martial arts ‘prodigy’ and excels specifically in japanese jujitsu, ninjitsu, Keysi, and Aikido. Bold, daring, and audacious with a strict adherence to utility The Caped Crusader is undoubtedly a Promoter Artisan. Indeed Batman has a thick skin and is a hard-nosed utilitarian, doing whatever it takes to get the job done. The Dark Knight however knows all too well as most Promoters do, that “he who travels fast, travels alone”. Until Bane shows up.
Bane spent his childhood and early adult-life in prison, serving a sentence for his fathers crimes. Bane’s ‘natural abilities’ allowed him to develop ‘extraordinary skills’ within the prison walls including a plethora of brutal martial arts. Bane has since evolved into a ‘super intelligent world-class fighter’ and a ‘tactical genius’. Bane is most known for causing a prison break to overwhelm Batman, and then breaking his back while he is weak and tired. Impulsive, fearless, and ridden with brute strength, Bane is undoubtedly a Crafter Artisan. Certainly, Bane like all Crafters communicates primarily through his actions. Bringing his prison mentality to Gotham City, Bane decided to go after the man that everyone feared: Batman. Indeed a physical specimen, actor Tom Hardy packed on 30 pounds of muscle to play the role. Like his fellow Crafters, Bane is ‘fascinated by weapons of all kinds’ and wields them with ‘lethal virtuosity’, taking ‘pride’ in his ‘prowess’. In other words if I saw this dude on the street, I probably wouldn’t talk sh*t.
Warner Bros. recently announced that fresh new trailers for both The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Dark Knight Rises will be attached to their big holiday release Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows opening December 16th.
Everything’s impossible until somebody does it. 
DC/Warner Bros. launched a bit of a news counter-attack this week no doubt in an attempt to ‘one-up’ it’s rival Marvel/Disney as the epic battle between the two stellar organizations rages on.
The highly anticipated console game Batman:Arkham City hit counters yesterday and was met with rave reviews across the board (97/100 on Metacritic). The game is extremely well done, has a great story arch, hosts a slew of bat-villains, and allows you to beat the sh*t out of people as Batman. Need we say more?
Warner Bros. Studios also got a reasonable amount of free publicity last night at Spike TV’s Scream Awards as it took home several trophies. The Dark Knight Rises took home the ‘most anticipated‘ award beating out it’s bitter rival the Avengers. Ralph Phiennes won ‘best villain‘ for his phenomenal portrayal of ‘he who must not be named’ (Lord Voldemort). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows – Part 2 also took home several other (6 total) awards last night including the top honor (‘Biggest Scream‘), culminating a series of relatively irrelevant victories for the good folks over at Warner Bros. Pictures.
In related bat-news The Dark Knight Rises is reportedly set to occupy Wall Street starting October 29th for 14 days, which very well might overlap with the on-going Wall Street protests currently taking place. Being the film-making gangster that Christopher Nolan is, the protests apparently will not interfere with his plans, as he will “simply be using the protests as a back-drop or stand-in for something that already exists in the film”. And that ladies and gentlemen, is how you turn a frown upside down.
Given this slew of bat and bat-related news, let’s take a look at The Dark Knight Rises’ primary villain, the hard-knock bad-ass known as Bane.
Bane spent his childhood and early adult-life in prison, serving a sentence for his fathers crimes. Bane’s ‘natural abilities‘ allowed him to develop ‘extraordinary skills‘ within the prison walls: reading all the books he could get his hands on, building his physique in the prison gym, and picking up a plethora of martial arts. Bane has since evolved into a ‘super intelligent world-class fighter‘ and a ‘tactical genius‘. Bane indeed turned out to be a truly brilliant tactician, as he is most known for causing a prison break to overwhelm Batman, and infamously breaking the Bat’s back while he is weak and tired. Impulsive, fearless, and ridden with brute strength, Bane is undoubtedly a Crafter Artisan. Indeed Bane utilizes a variety of different ‘tools‘, including the super-drug ‘Venom‘, a reported army of mercenaries, a couple of ‘tumblers’, and evidently a ‘doomsday machine’. Bane like all Crafters communicates primarily through his actions: bringing his prison mentality to Gotham City, Bane decided to go after the man that everyone feared: Batman. Indeed a physical specimen, actor Tom Hardy packed on 30 pounds of muscle to play the role. Like his fellow Crafters, Bane is ‘fascinated by weapons of all kinds‘ and wields them with ‘lethal virtuosity‘, taking ‘pride‘ in his ‘prowess‘.
You know nothing of strength, little boy. I know strength. Such as the strength that comes from numbers. And the strength one gains from knowing his enemy’s weaknesses. Checkmate.
Without getting too spoilerish: it seems Bane will indeed break Batmans back in the The Dark Knight Rises, as evidenced by Christian Bale limping out of a Lamborghini. This is supposedly when the Dark Knight will take a break, and a valiant young man named Joseph Gordon Levitt will temporarily step in as Batman’s sidekick, Robin.
As shooting on Wall Street will no doubt beget a new wave of on-set spy photos and footage, stay tuned for more bat and bat-related temperament news. Same bat time, same bat channel (blog).
UPDATE: Warner Bros. Pictures will release an 6 minute IMAX prologue for The Dark Knight Rises that will be attached to the IMAX release of Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol. This also strongly suggests that Warner Bros. will also give us a new TDKR trailer with their big holiday release Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Full story here.
