eee!

This interview with Christopher Nolan has info about the next Batman movie. Basically, just the title and what villains are not going to be in it. I'm glad to see which characters have been ruled out, as they're two of my least favorites. We'll have to see...

I went to see The Dark Knight yesterday. The Scientist and I went with GnR, as it's G's 30th birthday on Tuesday and we celebrated yesterday. All four of us LOVED this movie. Holy crap almighty. Last weekend I saw my friend Steve, the movie critic. Steve had already seen this movie twice, and he summed it up perfectly by saying that this movie isn't a superhero movie, it's a crime drama with a superhero in it. And that's exactly the case. Honestly, I was blown away by how damn good this film was. All the hype is totally legit. This is a GOOD MOVIE.

( Very, very mild spoilers. )

The first real trailer for The Dark Knight is being shown before I am Legend. And of course, that means someone went to last night's midnight showing of the movie and recorded it with their cell phone. It's a bit shaky and a lot slanted, but the sound is good. See the trailer here, before it gets shut down. That means you, aj. ;)

Special note to aj and deeablo: I have contacted 826Chicago about being an extra in The Dark Knight on Sunday the 26th. Now you two go do the same.

Tonight deeablo is coming over to watch Flash Gordon on SciFi, as it stars Eric Johnson and we both love him. My place is sorta kinda clean (thanks to the Scientist's help), and I even have new sheets for my bed. My beautiful gold sheets finally gave out and ripped, and the others don't match (and aren't clean), so I got new sheets last night. Much better. Oh, and I have pie. Mmmmmmm.

I don't want to be at work today.

Tomorrow the Scientist and I are going to check out a hotel for the wedding. They're offering us a pretty good rate, and shuttles for our guests to/from the reception hall. So we're going to take a look and see if the rooms are good. After that, we're going to my parents' house where will we have dinner with them. I'm planning on buying a cake for Mom's birthday as well. (I'd make a cake myself, but I have nothing to transport it in.) So tomorrow should be nice.

Otherwise, it's all freelance, all the time from here on out.

Guess what I saw coming home from work tonight?

( Gotham takes over! )

They're filming all along Monroe tonight, down Wells (lighting rigs alongside the L between Quincy and Washington, so I'm guessing there will be more train stuff in this movie), and along Dearborn. According to the CTA website, "Downtown Streets Closed for Filming. Portions of LaSalle, Adams and Monroe will be closed to traffic due to filming. Fourteen CTA bus routes will undergo reroutes from 6:30 p.m. each night until 6 a.m. each morning from Thursday, July 26 until Sunday, July 29." aj, if you want to stalk the set, now you know where to go.

I know it's totally geeky of me, but I absolutely love the fact that they're doing so much location work in the city. And I saw a guy working on the electricity cables wearing a 3:10 to Yuma shirt, so it was like a fandom collision (Christian Bale & Alan Tudyk, yay!). But I digress... BATMAN!!!

The Dark Knight has officially begun filming in Chicago. Right now they've transformed the old post office at Wacker & Van Buren into the Gotham National Bank. More info can be found here and here.

For anyone interested, the code name for this movie is "Rory's First Kiss." So if you see any signs around about parking restrictions for RFK, that's Batman.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

According to this report, the new Batman movie has cast for the Joker, Harvey Dent/Two-Face, and the Penguin. Okay. Now, while this movie boasts a cast of really good actors, I have to ask: did they not learn from the first Batman franchise? More than one super-villain at a time is too much! You just cannot have the Joker and the Penguin and Two-Face all at the same time. At least with Batman Begins, the combo of Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul worked. Why? Because a) those two were working together in the end, and b) while they're good villains, they aren't SUPER villains in the Batman mythology. While the storyline behind Ra's Al Ghul is arguably one of the best around, he's no Joker. The Joker deserves some time in his own spotlight, not having to share it with other villains, especially ones as big as the Penguin or Two-Face.

I'm hoping that Phillipe's role will be more along the Harvey Dent side of things, setting up Two-Face for a later movie. They need to establish Harvey Dent as a character if they want Two-Face to make any sort of impact as a villain. And with Kat(i)e Holmes/Cruise out of the picture, they're going to need a new D.A. So I hope this is the approach they're taking. That said, even having the Joker and the Penguin in one movie is too much. One major villain at a time, folks. Learn from Joel Schumacher's mistakes.

Spent the weekend cleaning. Cleaned on Friday night, then Saturday morning went out to my parents' house to do laundry and go shopping. (A store near my parents' house is closing after at least 20 years of business, and their fake Christmas trees were on sale. While it was fun to go out and buy a real tree with boannan and jasunshine last year, it was kind of a mess. So I got a really nice artificial for a steal.) Came home Saturday afternoon and cleaned like mad. fava_bean and BJ came over that night. We went for food around the corner, had margaritas with dinner, then came home and BJ and I split a bottle of almond-flavored sparkling wine. It sounds horrible, but went down easy. Then we watched "Fruitcake" for a while and mocked it. (bigboobedcanuck and deeablo know what that means.) I went to bed around 2 a.m., feeling rather giggly from the booze. Yesterday I got up and started cleaning again. Mom came over to help me out, as I had to get the AC unit out of the window and downstairs, and I needed someone there to make sure I didn't fall down the stairs in the process. So now my apartment is fairly clean in preparation for my cousin Holly's visit this weekend. Yay! Last night I made chicken casserole & biscuits for dinner, and finally sat down to watch Finding Neverland, which I'd been putting off because I knew it would make me cry. And it did. As soon as the orphans showed up, I started crying and couldn't stop until the movie ended. Thank God for the outtakes of Johnny and Radha playing their scenes drunk, and the fart machine. (Also, Johnny with an Irish accent? *SWOON*)

And now I'm back at work, doing flashcards again. But I had oatmeal with peaches, blueberries, and Grape-Nuts mixed in for breakfast, so I'm feeling pretty good. And I think boannan and I are meeting for lunch today, so that's cool.

I got notice from Amazon.com that my double-disc Batman Begins DVDs have been shipped and should be at my place either Wednesday or Thursday. Yay! BATMAN!!!

And that's all I got.

More new rumors! (Thanks to devildoll.) Katie Holmes may return! Boo! Steve Carell may be the Joker! Wuh? Interesting...

Is it 2008 yet? (Thanks to devildoll for the link.)

And I'm not sure what to think of those latest rumors that Nolan is trying to get Sean Penn for the role of the Joker. :\ Sean Penn? Really? Though I'm not quite sure that Paul Bettany is the way to go, either. Hmmmm.

Also, I am so envious of the people boating up and down the river right now. Lucky bastards, even if the Chicago River does tend to be stink-o-riffic.