WILL HYPE MAKE OR BREAK THE DARK KNIGHT?

It’s official.  The Internet doesn’t give a flying shit about the Syrian stalemate, Mitt Romney’s alleged financial misconduct, escalating climate change or the looming Summer Olympics.  Right here, right now, it’s all about Batman.  The Dark Knight Rises, the third and final chapter in Christopher Nolan’s monumental franchise, opens in wide-release at midnight tonight.  Anticipation has reached a frenzied pitch.  Everywhere I click are articles, interviews, reviews, trailers, production stills and memes galore.  I’ll never understand how this particular incarnation of the Caped Crusader managed to capture our popular imagination so completely.  Or, in some unfortunate instances, inspire such vitriolic fanaticism. 

Batman Begins, which launched this newfangled spin on the 70 year-old vigilante icon, was a modest success.  It was dark without being depressing, and inflected with just enough comic-book camp.  But it was the sequel, which preyed upon post-9/11 anxieties, that propelled the series into the pop-culture stratosphere.  I’m one of the film’s few detractors. 

THE ART OF THE CON: SAN DIEGO COMIC CON POST-MORTEM

This past weekend a seething swarm of fanatics descended upon San Diego, the seaside SoCal city discovered by German explorers in 1904 and named for the most intimate part of a female whale’s anatomy.  Geeks from every race, religion, creed and species have been attending Comic-Con International since 1970.  Some make the pilgrimage hoping to meet their favourite comic book artist, others to buy limited edition collectibles.  Many arrive costume-clad, eager to share their unbridled enthusiasm for highly insular corners of pop-culture.  This year though, the vast majority were there so Hollywood hucksters could shotgun the latest blockbusters directly into their nerdy cerebral cortices. 

I’ve been to conventions both large and small, and it can be an overwhelming experience.  The pulsing mass of humanity.  The blatant consumerism.  And, of course, the lines that stretch into infinity.  But San Diego, the great white megalodon of comic conventions, is Geek Mecca.  A place where fandom is magnified to epic proportions.  Thankfully, between the countless entertainment blogs, my fully customizable Twitter feed and G4’s TV coverage, I was able to enjoy this year’s Con from the relative safety and absolute comfort of my own Fortress of Solitude here in Toronto, Canada.

WELCOME TO THE GRINDHOUSE

It’s been half-a-decade since Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez unleashed Grindhouse, their festering love letter to no-budget drive-in B-Movies.  Sitting in that empty theatre on opening weekend, Easter 2007, I never imagined we were perched on the rusty razor’s edge of a new era in Exploitation cinema.  The movie paired Rodriguez’s Planet Terror with Tarantino’s Death Proof.  Sandwiched between the John Carpenter-inspired zombie flick and the country-fried killer car movie was a trio of hilarious fake trailers directed by genre acolytes Edgar Wright, Eli Roth and Rob Zombie.  But this three-hour magnum-opus of oozing viscera, perky tits, big guns and twisted metal unceremoniously bombed at the box-office.  While guys like Ti West (House Of The Devil) and actor-turned-director Michael Biehn (The Terminator, Aliens) have done their best to perpetuate retro-cool in the intervening years, hope is stirring on the horizon.

MOVIEBALL: BASEBALL ON THE BIG SCREEN

Now that both the L.A. Kings and LeBron have been crowned, sports-fans can finally turn their undivided attention to America’s favourite pastime.  The summer may have only just begun, but the regular baseball season is already in full swing.   And while I only follow MLB with a passing interest, cultural osmosis has cultivated in me a profound appreciation for the game itself.  The history of Baseball is the history of the 20^th Century.  Its past is our prologue.  Baseball is mythical.  Anyone who’s made the pilgrimage to Cooperstown, and wandered the halls with hushed reverence, can attest to this inalienable truth.  It’s also cinematic.  I may not love the sport, in its current hyper-corporatized incarnation, but I love baseball on film.

BRUCE LEE'S TAO OF CHOP SOCKY

Let’s be real.  No one watches a Bruce Lee movie for the story.  The plot of The Big Boss (his first major role) and Enter The Dragon (his crowning achievement) are essentially the same, and decidedly threadbare.  Both films pit Lee against shadowy drug cartels.  He preaches fortune-cookie inspired anti-violence, before dispatching the goons in escalating video game-like fashion.  The Big Boss (aka: Fists of Fury) couldn’t be more low-rent.  Enter The Dragon is only superficial sophisticated, filling the frame with anonymous day-players, and flirting with a ham-fisted flashback structure.  Victims of the era in which they were produced, these films should be resounding failures. 

GOTHAM’S MAYOR SIGNS SWEEPING CRIME BILL

Gotham City Mayor, Anthony Garcia

This morning, Gotham City’s Mayor, Anthony Garcia, signed the controversial Dent Act into legislation.  The sweeping bill, which was passed unanimously by the City Assembly, targets organized crime.  Named in honour of Gotham’s deceased District Attorney, Harvey Dent, the act authorizes stiffer sentencing, including a moratorium on parole.  It also closes a loophole that hinders the city’s ability to prosecute individuals who commit crimes that are part of a larger network.  "[Harvey Dent’s] courage in taking on the criminal empires that ruled our streets saved our city.  It would be inappropriate for us not to honor his sacrifice", said the Mayor. 

DMZ: AN EXPLOSIVE LOVE-LETTER HURLED AT NEW YORK CITY

In the future, Manhattan isn’t a maximum security Federal penitentiary, nor is it ruled by costumed street gangs.  Instead, The Big Apple has become a Demilitarized Zone, the neutral no-man’s land in a second American civil war.  That’s the provocative premise of DMZ, Brian Wood’s long-running Vertigo comic-book series.  A rookie reporter named Matty Roth is our hapless tour-guide.  When stranded in this hellacious concrete jungle he has no choice but to navigate a warren of shifting alliances and ulterior motives.  Matty isn’t an iconoclastic gonzo-journalist like Transmetropolitan's Spider Jerusalem.  He’s a confused kid who has bit of more than he can chew, and is forced to man-up or be put down.  Elevated by Riccardo Burchielli's distinctive art-style,  the story investigates Matty's struggles as an embedded journalist in a terrifying what-if scenario, but it also chronicles the war for the soul of an entire city.