A week and a half ago, Anthony Hemingway’s Red Tails was released. On the surface, the film breathes Hollywood oxygen through-and-through. It’s a WWII era action film that uses its setting for broad family-friendly cheese-banter and CGI-heavy eye candy rather than an opportunity for a sober interrogation of history. Red Tails looks and feels like any Hollywood film geared toward as mass an audience as possible. But the studio that’s distributing it – 20th Century Fox – didn’t pay a dime to produce it. The reported $58 million cost to make Red Tails came solely out of the pocket of producer George Lucas, who had been attempting to get a film about the Tuskegee Airmen made since the early 1990s. He was continually met with resistance from a studio system that saw anything less than the biggest guaranteed appeal to the largest possible audience as a “risk,” including a heroic true story about African-American airmen. The ideology that closed the doors on George Lucas of all people reflects the same business mentality that inspired Jeffrey Katzenberg’s lengthy warning to other studios in a memo written during the same years that Lucas was first trying to get Red Tails financed.  In the memo, Katzenberg warned studios regarding their practice of exponentially centralizing all their resources in a few very expensive projects, resulting in high risk, little room for experimentation, and an increasing reliance on that coveted monolith known as the “mass audience” (which, to make things even more complicated, now includes [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

This week’s merchandise world has gone loopy for The Dark Knight Rises with two stellar announcements by two of the world’s biggest collectible players, in DC Direct and Hot Toys, and 2012 looks like it’s going to be a good year for anyone who collects Bat Merch. There’s also a couple of entries from Mattel, making this the most bumperest Merch Hunter column ever. It’s been a thrill-ride, and I’d like to thanks Jesus Christ and Chris Nolan for giving me the strength to achieve this monumental feat. So anyway, this week’s Merch Hunter is dedicated to Chris Nolan’s upcoming trilogy-ender, and the news that has got collectors’ tongues wagging and seats wet in the past week or so. So put away your wallets for now, because you won’t be able to buy what is listed here just yet – and in all honesty, saving up for them is probably going to be a pragmatic decision, given how much dough is likely to be needed to buy them.

I didn’t think it was possible for me to be any more excited about P.T. Anderson’s upcoming religious drama that was at one point called The Master. First off, Anderson is one of my very favorite directors, so anything he does is going to excite me. Secondly, Philip Seymour Hoffman is starring as the L. Ron Hubbard stand-in who serves as the main character, and he’s about the best actor on the planet. And third, much like Anderson’s last film, There Will Be Blood, this one is going to feature a score by Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood. Last time around that equaled aural awesomeness. But now there’s a new rumor swirling around the project that is almost too cool to believe, and coming from these sources, I’d say it’s pretty dang reliable. Cinema Blend was peeping in on a Twitter conversation between two directors from the Pixar stable, Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton, about movies being shot in 65mm, and they uncovered the tidbit that Anderson is going to be the next director to utilize the format. Somewhere in the thread of the conversation Bird said to Stanton, “ … Nolan shot a lot of Dark Knight Rises in IMAX. I think PT Anderson’s next is 65 too.” To which Stanton replied, “The Master is indeed in 65. They nearly lost a camera shooting in the Bay.”

CORRECTION: Collider has spoken with WB, IMAX and Steve’s best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend who heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night, and they’ve issued a retraction stating that their original story was wrong. (Take that “friend of an IMAX projectionist.”) So depending on where you fell on the whole can/can’t understand Bane fiasco of 2011, rest assured that nothing has changed. He’s still talking through a goddamn mask. Original post: Remember that time that people complained about needing subtitles for Attack the Block Bane’s (Tom Hardy) dialogue in The Dark Knight Rises? I didn’t get it either, but according to a friend of a friend of an IMAX projectionist who wrote into Collider, Warners has sent out new sound reels for the prologue that’s playing before Ghotocol right now. Apparently the dialogue hasn’t been altered at all, as per Christopher Nolan‘s claim that he wouldn’t change it, but the ambient noise has been reduced so that Bane can be heard a bit more clearly. So, there you go. This whole situation seemed a bit ridiculous, but hopefully the compromise is something that Warners, Nolan and the fans can all appreciate. No word yet on whether Rooster Cogburn from the Coens’ True Grit and Bane will do a cross-over sequel.

Hedy Lamarr was a darkly beautiful, iconic star of the 30s and 40s, probably best known for her starring role in Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah. She is also, apparently, a great inspiration for Anne Hathaway as she crafted her Catwoman/Selina Kyle character for Chris Nolan’s forthcoming The Dark Knight Rises. “I know this sounds odd, but her breathing is extraordinary,” Hathaway told the LA Times. “She takes these long, deep, languid breaths and exhales slowly. There’s a shot of her in Ecstasy exhaling a cigarette and I took probably five breaths during her one exhale. So I started working on my breathing a lot.” Apparently nothing about Lammarr shockingly going topless for the movie back in 1933 made its way into Catwoman. Hathaway talks more about breathing and delves a bit more into the challenges in the must-read piece from Geoff Boucher, but beware of a mild spoiler for one of the scenes. The most reassuring part of the talk? That the costume is more functional than fantasy. Once again, Nolan seems to be looking out for logic, even in a world that defies it. This is more great information about one of, if not the most, anticipated movies of 2012.

Despite the fact that the world collectively shat their pants at all of the cool included in the first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s third Batman joint, The Dark Knight Rises, there was also a rallying cry that begun to spring up after all the explosions and Batplanes had sunk in. It was the cry of, “Hey, what did Bane say? I couldn’t understand him at all!” Tom Hardy, behind the Bane mask, kind of sounds like the son of Michael Caine and Donald Trump gargling marbles, so everybody is now hoping that the line we got from him was just early footage, or a temporary sound mix, or something that isn’t at all indicative of what it’s really going to be like trying to understand the main villain for the entirety of the film. Unfortunately for those with hopes, THR claims to have sources saying that this is definitely what Bane is going to sound like through the whole movie, and that Christopher Nolan doesn’t have many plans to do anything about it. The first source they cite, who is just said to be “working on the film,” says that he is “scared to death” about “the Bane problem.” This could either be taken as evidence that Bane’s dialogue will be an issue, or evidence that somebody working as an extra wanted a little bit of spotlight from the trades and struck while an online controversy was hot to deliver a quote, I’ll let you decide. But further comments in [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Wow. Wow is all there is. With all eyes on Christopher Nolan to find a fitting ending for the massive phenomenon that he’s turned into an even more massive phenomenon, the director and everyone involved seems to have pointed beyond the bleachers and out into the parking lot with this full length trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. It’s got Christian Bale getting existential as Batman, Tom Hardy as Bane looking ominous with a bomb and Anne Hathaway representing the unwashed masses as a masked Selina Kyle. In fact, it’s got enough red meat to make any old fan happy – and to prove that Nolan and company are not shying away from the greatness of their challenge.

Lets be honest with ourselves: The Dark Knight Rises is going to be the movie of 2012, no matter what other studios put together or how many superheroes they throw into one movie. The conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy will be the most highly trafficked, marketed and anticipated film event of the year. There’s no two ways about it. And as it were, any time something new is released from The Dark Knight Rises, that will be the thing of the day. Which makes this big, gorgeous and revealing poster today’s thing. It stars Tom Hardy as Bane, walking away from the broken cowl of our hero. A sign of things to come…

A little birdie just dropped into my inbox, gravel-voiced a question about where the drugs were, and then told me that the prologue to The Dark Knight Rises will be in theaters 7 months before the rest of the movie. Those of you who want a taste of what Christopher Nolan and company are cooking up can get your six-minute fill on December 16th. Fans in the UK will have to wait a tick longer, but they’ll have their screens filled with Batman-y goodness on December 21st (which is the day the Magi spotted the Bane-shaped constellation in the sky and headed toward Gotham (true story)). Other international dates will be released soon. So will it be coming to a town near you, or will you have to pay for gas? Scope out the list of where it will be playing and see for yourself:

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly collective of links and thoughts breaking down all the news and great essays from around the movie blogosphere. A celebration of quality programming, if you will. Thus, it becomes quality programming in and of itself. In short, it’s worth however long it takes you to read to the end (where we’ve strategically placed a Christopher Nolan-themed video as your reward). We begin this evening with the internet’s story of the night, Daniel Day-Lewis’ awesome Abe Lincoln beard, as shot by Virginia local Michael Phillips. He snapped a shot of the highly method actor in a Richmond restaurant (not far from where Steven Spielberg’s film is currently in production). Basically it looks like Abraham Lincoln with jeans on. So yes, that works. Also worth noting: It’s being reported that Day-Lewis has not dropped his Lincoln accent since March. That’s one hardcore mother-effing emancipator, right there.

What is Movie News After Dark? It has been happening (just about) every weeknight since the beginning of the year. One would hope that you have an idea about what it is by now. For those who still haven’t caught on, it’s about movie news… and it happens after dark. We begin tonight with the story of the wee hours of yesterday, in which Empire’s latest issue began shipping with two covers from The Dark Knight Rises, including the limited edition Bane cover seen above. Some of the folks around the web with camera have sent pictures in to Coming Soon, but more importantly, they’ve included details from the set visit piece within Empire. Especially notable is the part about The Dark Knight Rises being set 8 years in the future.

Retreat is a film that lives or dies by its actors. Mainly set in one location and focusing primarily on three characters constantly interacting, that’s an exceptionally tough film to make. That seems like a common thing for actor Cillian Murphy, though. No one can look at Peacock and Breakfast on Pluto and say, “What safe, easy roles.” The actor takes chances, and it all comes down to the directors he’s going to put his trust in. When one works with the likes of Danny Boyle, Christopher Nolan, Ken Loach, and Andrew Niccol, that must not be too difficult. The actor usually manages to work with the best nowadays, but even so, as Murphy says, you’re never going to quite know what to expect from a film. And, at the end of a film, that doesn’t matter much. Murphy’s advice: never be nostalgic and always move forward. Immediately before talking to Murphy, I had just gotten out of In Time. In that film, Murphy spends a lot of time getting his ass kicked, being disrespected, and everything else that would make one of us feel unmanly, similarly to his character in Retreat. A lot of Murphy’s characters seem that way, but to him it’s less about emasculation, more about how everyone’s a contradiction.

Remember Avatar Day? Remember having to procure tickets for what was essentially an extended trailer? Remember feeling really strange about going to a movie theater for a less-than-twenty-minute presentation? Oh, well, me either, because I didn’t do any of those things, but let’s work from the same sort of frame of mind, but with an actual film attached. Our friends over at /Film are reporting an exclusive tip that Warner Bros. is attaching a six-minute “prologue” for The Dark Knight Rises to all IMAX prints of Paramount’s upcoming Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol release. Though the films are coming from different studios, should this prove to be true, such a slice of marketing mayhem will no doubt push interested moviegoers and fans of the Batman to check out the Brad Bird-helmed franchise entry in the IMAX format. Paramount is already making a to-do of their film’s IMAX release, putting that version in theaters on December 16, five days before the film hits regular theaters on December 21. Both Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and The Dark Knight Rises will feature “extensive scenes” shot for IMAX, so this may prove to be the holiday season’s best pairing (beyond egg nog and whiskey). Warner Bros. has declined to comment on the story to /Film, but the team over there has gathered a couple of other sources that confirm it. Will this drive you to check out Ghost Protocol in IMAX? And just what the heck do they mean by “prologue”? Aren’t two previous films [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Now that the L.A. portion of shooting for Christopher Nolan’s third Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises is finishing up, the production is packing up and getting ready to head out to New York City. And according to 24 Frames, someone working on the the film who has access to the actors’ schedules says that those in the movie have been briefed that while in New York they may be filming scenes that take place at the Occupy Wall Street protests. What sort of craziness is this? Well apparently there are scenes of civil unrest in TDKR and instead of going through the trouble of making his own, fake protests, Nolan would like to see if he could add some authenticity to his film by using a real street movement as a backdrop. Everything that TDKR is actually doing is, of course, super secret. The movie doesn’t even film under its own name, it films under the code name “Magnus Rex,” so whether any of this talk about protest shooting is real or not is hard to confirm. This news is coming from one source that has contacted the L.A. Times, so to believe is to have faith in them. If shooting that takes place at the protests actually does become a reality, it’s interesting to imagine how the social movement would respond to having a big Hollywood production in their midst. Would they see the movie industry as a tool of corporate greed and try to disrupt the shootings? [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that hopes you didn’t forget about it. It was busy getting drunk with other movie news columns at Fantastic Fest. It loves to watch Koreans stab each other. We begin tonight with something simple: a character shot from Toy Story 3. There’s no news here, just beautifully detailed Pixar animation. Since this is my first day back after taking a week off for Fantastic Fest, I thought I’d kick us off with something offbeat. Also, it sets the tone for a week that includes articles collected over the last 10 days. Some old, some new, mostly non-news and all interesting.

Shooting in downtown Chicago for Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman movie Man of Steel will begin on Wednesday, and local rag Chicago Business has scoops on some of the locations that will be used and what they will be doubling as. More specifically, while they’re not sure of the locations of any street shots, they know what building Snyder plans to use as the headquarters of Metropolis’ number one newspaper The Daily Planet. Apparently Chicago’s Board of Trade building will serve as the Planet building exteriors (with digitally inserted globe atop, I’m sure) and the interiors of the newspaper office will be filmed inside of the Wesley Willis Memorial Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower). These choices make a lot of sense, because the Board of Trade is a big imposing building that looks nice standing at the end of a street, and the Willis Tower is huge, so there’s probably plenty of room inside to be converted into movie sets. Eagle eyed Chicago enthusiasts or great big super hero nerds might have noticed that there’s a sweet little bit of trivia created by Snyder’s choice though. The Board of Trade looks so good as a big imposing building that it was also used as the headquarters for Wayne Enterprises in Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise. Using the same building twice for two big superhero movies shouldn’t be a big deal; you slap a big W on it the first time, you put a big globe on it the second time, [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

It’s been quite a while since it was announced that saucy young actress Juno Temple would be appearing in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming and omnipresent The Dark Knight Rises. But other than the fact that she would be playing a “street smart Gotham girl”, nobody has been able to dig up the specifics of exactly who her character is, and if she would be somebody who has already appeared in the Batman mythos. Of course, when absolutely anything about a highly anticipated comic book movie is left unclear, speculation often runs rampant. Would she be the “The Dark Knight Returns” version of Robin, Carrie Kelly? Would she be playing the youthful psychologist turned clown-faced wacko, Harley Quinn? It turns out, no. Total Film seems to think they have a scoop on the role Temple is filling, and it’s that of sometime Catwoman sidekick Holly Robinson.

!Commentary Commentary weekly your to back Welcome See what I did there? This week, we’re hitting up one of the finest pieces of cinema in the last 15 years and hearing from the uber-intelligent man behind it. The film? Memento. The director? Christopher Nolan. In this commentary, you’ll uncover mysteries, technique, and styles the filmmaker put into one of his several masterworks. What you won’t be getting is any information on Dark Knight Rises. Sorry, but me just including that title here ensured 54 more hits. It’s a proven fact. So, without further ado, here is what I learned from listening to Christopher Nolan’s commentary track on Memento. In addition, I also learned a thing or two about my own short-term memory problems. Yeah, I have some trouble remembering things. Like that time I took a picture of Joe Pantoliano’s corpse. See what I did there? This week, we’re hitting up one of the finest pieces of…Oh, never mind!

A pretty interesting photo (which gets bigger if you click it) hit the Internet late tonight. It’s a deleted scene from TRON: Legacy, giving us a glimpse of Anne Hathaway playing a small role as a program named Catturra. Okay, that’s a lie. It’s the first official look at Anne Hathaway dressed up as Catwoman for The Dark Knight Rises. As you can see, she’s wearing form-fitting leather from head to toe, she’s got a pair of high tech looking goggles on (which seem to be connected to something via Bluetooth, I hope she doesn’t go into movies wearing those), and her hair is pulled back into a ponytail. That looks like a pretty decent getup for a cat burglar to me. Oh yeah, and seeing as that isn’t actually a light cycle she’s riding, I guess we can only come to one conclusion… she’s stealing Batman’s motorcycle! If I know Batman, he’s not going to take very kindly to that. Most likely he’s going to do whatever it takes to hunt her down, find his motorcycle, and engage in some sexually tense banter with her until she gives it back. And she will give it back. He’s the Goddamn Batman. The picture comes from the film’s official site, with a special nod to /Film for being the first one I saw to discover it.

Bootlegs suck. If I wanted to watch a grainy movie trailer from someone who can’t keep his camera still, I’d just find a Paul Greengrass film. Here as an alternative, officially, is the Dark Knight Rises teaser trailer straight from the horse’s mouth over at the Facebook page. Fortunately, The Film Stage has embedded it properly, so we can deliver it straight to you, dear reader. There isn’t much to say, and you’ve probably skipped all this anyway. How do you spell ‘anticipation?’