I officially HATE Brett Ratner

First, Ratner (the Rush Hour franchinse, X-Men: The Last Stand) wants to make a Guitar Hero movie (idiot) and now he wants to make... wait for it...

wait for it...

just a little longer so that the impact of this will be brutal...

A Joker spin-off! (and check out the link for equally stupid quotes from Ratner)

What the hell man! This is the worst idea I've heard in a long time. First of all, as much as I don't think the Joker should just never be considered for a villain again, I don't think he should be considered anytime soon. We need to let Ledger have that performance for a while. And second of all, I don't want to see more of this character! He's scary because he's batshit crazy and has no motives. If you give him his own movie, you have to explain motives, and thus the veil is lifted and the Wizard is revealed to be a crusty old man, and that would suck for The Joker. And god help Ratner if he tries to make him sympathetic. Argh! I hate that man!

By the way, he also mentioned doing a Halle Berry led Storm spin-off, which I'm neither here nor there about.

Anyone actually like this dude? Or think this is a good idea?

I believe in Harvey Dent's death

It's true folks, Harvey Dent is dead.  Not like comic book dead, where he could hit the lazarus pit and come back.  Nope.  He's dead, dead.  Straight from Two-Face(Arron Eckhart)s mouth "He is dead as a door nail.  He ain't coming back baby!"  So now Dent's death has been confirmed by the script, the director, the actor who played him, and the novelization of the story.  He's dead people!  He will not return for Batman 3!

By the way, here's an interesting tidbit, something I think most of us suspected but I had yet to see confirmed by anyone.  "No I'm not coming back.  I think unfortunately, Heath was supposed to go on and that didn't work out."  This was my, and I think most people's, assumption all along, but it's nice to have some closure on it.

So who's next?  Eckhart says he actually likes the idea of Angelina Jolie as Catwoman.  Dumb.  Nolan must have something  better than that up his sleeve.

What /film knows about Batman so far...

Peter Sciretta of /film just posted a short list of the little bits and pieces of information we have on the third Batman movie thus far. I'm super glad he did this because all of my friends who know I'm a super movie nerd have been coming up to me over the past week and acting like they know who the villains are for the new Batman. And I'm all "Oh yeah?" And they're all "Yeah!" And then I'm all "Well hit me with it playa!" And then they proceed to tell me that Johnny Depp will be playing the Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman will be the Penguin. And when I try to explain that those are just rumors, and are completely unconfirmed, and that Nolan hasn't even signed on to MAKE a third Batman yet, let alone begun writing it, they simply go "No, I read it online. I'm pretty sure they're all ready to do it." Well thank you Mr. Sciretta for clearing this all up by posting a list of the FACTS.

Most interesting for me is the one dated July 9th. I'm so glad Goyer is considering all the different stories they could play with and the variety of characters that exist in the Batman universe. I want to see some villains we haven't seen on the big screen before. I think this is what it will take to top the Ledger Joker: a new villain general audiences are unfamiliar with that will make the Joker look like a clown. No... wait... ugh.

Any suggestions as to what villain might fit that bill?

Check out these GREAT articles

The first two are from the cinematical team who do a lot of really great editorials. These guys and gals have great ideas and are fantastic writers, you should keep up with some of their weekly columns. The first, by the evil genius Eric Snider, is an excellent article breaking down and debunking the myths surrounding the changing of Harry Potter's release day. I don't know if we have any Potter fans reading, but this should lay things out pretty clearly and maybe sooth some of the pain of having to wait another 6 months for your movie. The second is from Eric Snider's evil doppleganger Erik Davis, and it is a plea to release Terry Gilliam's latest film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, featuring the final performance of Heath Ledger. Erik makes a great case for this film, and I hope I'm not the only one that agrees with him on needing to give Gilliam another chance. He really is one of the great, creative forces from past and present cinema.

I'd also like to point you all in the direction of Mr. David Chen (or is it Peter Chen? Hmmm) the mastermind behind the /filmcast that I pimp so regularly here at filmadelphia. He wrote a great (spolier ridden) article about some of the racial issues addressed in Tropic Thunder. My hat goes off to you, Peter-David Chen, for digging deeper, especially with a movie I think most people will only remember fora fat Tom Cruise and a black Downey, Jr (which is not to say I didn't like it, I loved this movie). I enjoy the great cinematical debates, especially those that really get into the in's and out's of storytelling.

What did you think about these articles? Anything worth arguing about?

What's the big friggin deal?

This morning, every blog I read was flooded with images from The Art of The Dark Knight that Peter at /film posted last night. Everyone seems to think they're way creepier than the actual version Ledger helped create in the film. And I have no freakin clue why. It looks like a torn Michael Myers mask. Which, yes, that mask is creepy, but no, that's not nearly as creepy as what I saw in TDK. As geekadelphia was quick to point out, it's Ledger's facial expressions that really bring the Joker to life. And for me, it's those expressions that really make him creepy. They make the slightly more subtle makeup used in the movie creppier than this flat looking mask type deal.

What do you think? Are these concepts creepier than the Joker we actually saw on screen? Do you prefer these to the Joker you saw on screen? Let us know in the comments!