It’s hard to imagine being more hyped for a movie than I am for The Dark Knight Rises.  Well, of course, Josh Brolin has Gangster Squad coming out this Fall.  But read my reviews of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight if you want a better idea of my love for this series.  They’re two of my all-time favorite films, and I have no doubt that TDKR will rank up there as well.

The fact that Christopher Nolan didn’t get an Oscar nomination for Best Director and The Dark Knight was not nominated for Best Picture is an indictment on what a joke the Academy Awards truly are.

“So are you gonna be camping out at the theater tonight to catch one of the midnight showings?”

Unfortunately, no.  I want to see the movie with my lovely bride, and while Kim was originally open to the idea of a midnight showing, it was ultimately determined that getting home after 3:00 AM on a work night wouldn’t be ideal.  To make matters worse, she has a friend who decided this was a good weekend to get married (you know who you are, and you should be ashamed), and since Kim’s in the wedding party that has cluttered the weekend schedule just a bit.  Of all weekends.

I truly think either the Lord has a spiritual lesson He wants me to learn through all of this, or Satan is working overtime.

Anyway, here’s what I have managed to work out:

• Batman Begins on Friday night
• The Dark Knight on Saturday night
• The Dark Knight Rises on Sunday after church

I have BB and TDK on blu ray and will be enjoying them in 7.1 Surround Sound.  But here’s my warning – don’t you dare try to get cute and send me any spoilers.  I WILL hurt you, and it will be justifiable.

And while TDKR was sadly not screened in Memphis (the one press screening they were supposed to have got cancelled) I still have the press kit, and thus I have access to all sorts of cool facts about the movie.  So for the rest of this week I’m going to share with you some quotes and tidbits regarding the movie just in case you needed anything else to get you excited.  Don’t worry; there are no spoilers.

“Batman is the hero Gotham deserves but not the one it needs right now.”Director/writer/producer Christopher Nolan says, “Our story picks up eight years [after the events in The Dark Knight], when it seems that Batman and Commissioner Gordon have succeeded—the Dark Knight is no longer needed in Gotham. In that regard, Bruce Wayne has won the battle, but he is traumatized by what happened and doesn’t know how to move on from being the figure of Batman. The Dark Knight Rises very much deals with the consequences of his and other characters’ actions in the previous films.”

Regarding the Character Bane

A new threat comes in the form of a merciless, masked villain named Bane, who makes his presence known to the citizens of Gotham with an explosive display of power. While the Scarecrow was a madman and the Joker an anarchist, “Bane is a terrorist in both his mentality and his actions,” says actor Tom Hardy, who plays Batman’s new arch-nemesis. “He is physically intimidating and he’s also very intelligent, which makes him even more dangerous.”

Nolan relates, “In deciding on who the next villain would be, it was imperative that it was someone completely different from the Joker—that he be a brute force. The physical component of what Bruce Wayne does as Batman is of extraordinary importance, and we had not truly challenged that in the first two films. I really wanted to see Batman meet his match physically, as well as intellectually. Bane is raw strength with a fanatical devotion to duty, and that combination makes him unstoppable.”

“This is the first time it appears highly unlikely that Batman will come out on top in a physical altercation,” Bale allows. “He has been dormant for years, so he’s in a weakened condition to begin with, and Bane is not only incredibly strong but ruthless in terms of his sheer militancy and the ideology that drives him.”

Regarding the Character Catwoman

Initially, however, it is not Bane who draws Bruce Wayne out of Wayne Manor; it is an intriguing encounter with a particularly skilled thief named Selina Kyle—better known in the Batman canon as Catwoman. Nolan says, “We felt very strongly that we should have Catwoman in this film, but we always look for an organic way of grounding the characters in our world. Selina is a cat burglar, a grifter, a classic movie femme fatale, really. That was my way in, and we drew the iconic figure of Catwoman from that.”

Screenwriter Jonathan Nolan says, “Something about her morally ambiguous philosophy finally gives Batman someone he can relate to. In a weird way, she’s the yin to his yang. The dynamic between them is so fresh—the playful way she kind of pokes fun at him—it sparks a connection between them and takes some of the somberness away from his character.”

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