The Cast: Christian Bale as Batman (Surprise!)- The Oscar winner will of course be returning as the “hero Gotham deserves.” Last we saw him in TDK (The Dark Knight,) he had declared himself a murderous fugitive to allow his city a glimpse at dawn.

-Anne Hathaway as Catwoman- The Golden Globe nominee will play Selina Kyle and her feline identity. Word is she won’t be as much of a burglar as she will an antihero in her own right. Those naysayers should know Bale felt something powerful in their screen test together and remember, he’s Christian Bale.

-Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon- The most noble cop in Gotham was also left covering up the messy details of Two-Face’s killing spree. When we see him in the minute and forty second long teaser trailer (now on YouTube,) he’s hospitalized and seemingly speaking (rasping) to an offscreen Bruce Wayne about the need for his alterego.

-Tom Hardy as Bane- “He’s brutal. It’s not about fighting. It’s about carnage. The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed, it’s nasty. Anything from small-joint manipulation to crushing skulls, crushing rib cages, stamping on shins and knees and necks and collarbones and snapping heads off and tearing his fists through chests, ripping out spinal columns.” The director said so himself in Empire Magazine. The only physical threat equivalent to Batman, Bane usually sports a luchadore mask but Hardy (of Bronson, Inception, and Warrior)  seems to be rocking more of a Hannibal Lecter funk. Usually known for breaking bats (their backs,) one wonders if he’ll pull his trademark in the film. The fatalities spoken above make it likely.

Other Mentions: The rest of the (surviving) supporting cast will inevitably be back. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman as Alfred and Lucius Fox respectively (though non-respectively would be fun.) Joseph Gordon Levitt (Inception & 500 Days of Summer) will star as the head of Gordon’s special unit (presumably assembled to find the Batman.) Cillian Murphy (Inception & 28 Days Later) will re-cameo as Scarecrow and finally, Marion Cotillard (Midnight In Paris, Inception, a lot of that going around) as Miranda Tate, a possible love interest for Bruce–or maybe secretly the daughter of Ra’s Al Ghul (bad guy of the first film,) returned to have vengeance on Gotham. She likes to “no comment” on this subject. Possibly Ellen Page (Juno) may play Gordon’s daughter, who one day becomes Batgirl.

The Plot: With the incredibly open-ended cliffhanger of TDK, you would expect them to jump right into the action for #3. The creative team had another idea, they decide to set the plot eight years into the future (Empire.) Great, seeing that far ahead in Batman’s shadow war on crime should be interesting, right? But perhaps there is no war waging. In the teaser, Gordon says to Bale specifically “that Batman has to come back.” This dialogue is intermingled with imagery of Gotham–perhaps collapsing? The sequence seems to suggest that Bruce has allowed Gotham to fall to ruin over a gradual span, maybe because he’s in a wheelchair- because his spine is broken (which is why he’s offscreen during the talk?) The only shot of Batman in the whole thing shows him limping backwards, void of breath, as Bane lumbers in confidently from the left. In the same Empire feature, Bale supports this with rumination. “How long will you let pain and loss define your life? He’s an older Bruce Wayne; he’s not in a great state.” Is the Bat broken? Is Gotham razed? Where is Catwoman in all of this? We can only postulate.

The Creative Team: This has always been the deciding factor in this series. Christopher and Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer have been writing these films since the beginning. Nothing has changed. Heath Ledger is sadly absent in this world now, but Batman Begins handled itself before him. Rises will handle itself after him. Not to mention the choice of Ledger was all them. Only they knew, they saw, what everyone else passed off as that pretty boy teenager from 10 Things I Hate About You. We all laughed. We didn’t know what laughter was. Nolan has never let anything subvert the heart, and especially mind, of his art. (Especially no Avenger.)

(The New Trailer Update:) My speculation in this article was really at an end up until the official trailer was released 4 days later… and I wouldn’t be the Batman diehard I am if this miracle passed by unheralded. So right off the ahem bat, we get our first real look and sound bites from the film’s main two villains–Catwoman and Bane. Selina Kyle, while not showing up in costume, speaks her mind at a masquerade with such fierce, ideological passion to go beyond the simplicity of being a flirtatious cat burglar. Nolan seems to be inserting a political context with her character (wouldn’t be the first time) to where she is almost advocating an “Occupy Wall Street” stance in Gotham. Hathaway is genuinely menacing in her clear but envious whispers to Bruce, hands down getting me on her bandwagon. Bane confirms just about all my hopes for him and the story in one line. “When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die.” His seemingly captive audience is none other than a intensely wounded Christian Bale minus a mask and ostensibly all his gear. This coupled with many shots of Wayne walking with a cane says to me the Bat will indeed be broken. To all my accumulated knowledge, nothing else this whole year could excite me more.

Let’s face it. Most movie trailers today suck. The execs and producers know they don’t have a quality script, cast, crew, what have you, and that to hint at their film’s themes or content (merely hint) would be ill-advised. So they slap some millions on the screen and visually molest you for two minutes; it’s fast and it’s easy (kudos to the FX guys but why are so many still abetting?) When the trailer for “Another Earth” found my soul over the summer, it owned it. Know the first night you left the city and looked on a clean sky, enamored by starlight? That’s exactly what this trailer impels–and that was after the fourth time. Though indie (self-made) films usually have great trailers; it’s whether a movie of this type indulges itself to a point of dispassion in the eye of the beholder.

Rhoda (Brit Marling) is seventeen and brilliant (a miraculous contradiction, I know,) aspires to astrophysics, and is attending a party where her friends celebrate her acceptance into MIT. She drives herself home in a happy haze, listening to the radio when Flavor Flav announces the presence of a new planet in the sky, with conditions identical to our own. (Which part of that sentence seemed bizarre to you?) Tilting her head to see a small, blue celestial “just east of the North Star”…she does not see the family stopped at the light. After four years in prison she finally returns home, except it doesn’t want her anymore. Coincidentally, a private corporation is launching a contest where anyone can submit a 500 word essay and chance at being the first civilian to “Earth-2.” Don’t start connecting the dots prematurely. There is baggage Rhoda will absolutely not abandon on her home world; only problem is that she doesn’t have the will to face it anymore.

Marling, a rather new face in Cinema, is an extraordinary talent. She co-writes with Mike Cahill (who’s directing a fictional narrative for the first time, very different stuff from documentaries) Sci-Fi the way it should be, human. In fact, the other Earth is very rarely discussed in scientific terms as the biggest anomaly of gravitational gridlock is never even brought up. The script seems influenced by Ray Bradbury who always found questions more rewarding than answers. He didn’t want you to wonder how the world got the way it did but to simply consider the implications of the thing itself.

Rhoda is written but also beautifully expressed as quite possibly the most dynamic, female protagonist I’ve experienced. She commands more than just sympathy; she commands admiration. Here’s a woman who feels defeated by adversity. The only work she can find is at her former high school as a member of the custodial staff. She’s mocked by old friends who found success (and excessive pride) in academia, displaced in her family, and even attempts suicide by letting her Nordic blood go home to ice–yet she never cries nor suspends her ethics for her situation. She never stops trying to clean up the mess of her life. Another key actor (and essentially the only other character in the movie) William Mapother is a former college composer with a substantial impact in Rhoda’s life. (I would’ve mentioned him more, as his exceptional chemistry with Marling takes up most of the screentime, but that would’ve subtracted from the initial viewing.) So as an artfilm, is it too artsy? As is customary, there was slo-mo and slow burn development with orchestral backings in accordance with unconventional camerawork that might feel lavish upon first watch. The second, everything will click. The cinematography is beautiful as any blue in the scene is fully saturated to reflect layers of melancholy subtext omnipresent on Earth-1. Seriously, study this film. The more thought you put in, the more timeless this movie will become.

Final Verdict: There’s no commentary or extensive featurette so you can prob’ skip the Blu-ray (though it’s visually stunning.) It’s the story and philosophical puzzle that’s worth owning. Imagine an Earth without “Another Earth.” It would be sorely lacking.

10. Kick-Ass- It would’ve probably been better titled Hit-Girl, the 10 year old cross between “Polly Pocket and John Rambo,” who polarized parents not bright enough to see that little R at the end of trailers (comic books are kids’ stuff, right?) and got the film labeled “morally reprehensible” by Roger Ebert. Seriously, don’t bring your kids…but do bring a friend. This sincere satire and homage to all things comic book tells the story of teenage unextraordinaire Dave Lizewski who wonders why nobody’s ever tried being a superhero. After putting on his own eBay ordered wetsuit and stopping a gang, the answer finds him in the form of broken ribs and puncture wounds. His heroism finds itself on YouTube and attracts the attention of father/daughter assassins who delude themselves into being masked vigilantes. Nicolas Cage makes a comeback with his Adam West parody, but it’s Chloë Grace Moretz, proving herself as the next Dakota Fanning, and her purple child soldier who’ll be remembered for years. Its Superbad sense of humor and fresh, insanely fun action scenes (most of them performed by a little girl) make this film perfect for kickoff…

9. The Crow- The swan song, the only song, of Bruce Lee’s fallen son (frightening in its resemblance to Heath Ledger’s tragedy) cements rank by itself. In a dark metropolis where crime is law, one of the countless victims is handed God’s sword by The Powers That Be when they send a crow, the carrier of his soul, to raise his spirit for a year from one Halloween to the next. Brandon Lee’s performance as wrathful ghost Eric Draven, who holds on to the optimism and kindness of life in a city as foregone as Detroit (it really does take place in Detroit,) is eternal. Knowing Lee died by accidental gunfire during post-production creates a morbid sensation when watching him paint his face white like the mask of Greek tragedy, or somber Pagliacci, pursuing his former murderer without a sound; a dead man playing a dead man. Film lovers know Alex Proyas for his classic Dark City, which he made right after this. Want to see an artistic master direct beautiful, unbridled vengeance? The answer is yes.

8. Hellboy II: The Golden Army- In WW2, Hitler opens the door to a dimension seemingly created by H.P. Lovecraft to harness its power. Instead of Cthulu, a mere baby demon crosses the stream…which will one day grow a right hand of stone and doom and usher in the Seven Gods of Chaos. Thankfully due to American intervention, the aptly named Hellboy is raised by a kindly professor to lead the B.P.R.D. (The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense) and fight consanguine darkness in the “absence of light.” Ron Perlman plays the fully grown version in the role of his lifetime. What should just be a heavy and red rubber suit becomes his skin, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling the most human and likeable of his cohorts, due to soul and script. Guillermo Del Toro takes his unreal practical effects from Pan’s Labyrinth and makes them better than ever. When you see elves, ogres, angels, and gods created without CGI, the “magic” in movies–becomes real.

7. Spider-Man 2- The traditional superhero film taken as far as it can go. Like every great Spider-Man story, he sacrifices everything to fight the good fight, and Fate still won’t leave him in the mud. Tobey Maguire brings out the full pathos of this character in trying to: attend college, pay for his one-room apartment, keep his only family from losing her home, fight for the girl, etc., all while trying to stop an equally desperate Doc Ock (Alfred Molina in my “top 5 greatest villains ever” list) from setting off a sun in New York City. Think an Oscar drama with its ensemble wearing tights (like Shakespeare.)

6. American Splendor- This is less super than one expects from a comic book movie, no super at all really, because it’s based on the eponymous graphic autobiography of Harvey Pekar, a writer of comics. Not just any writer however, Pekar was right there with Alan Moore and Frank Miller in the “Underground Comix” movement of self-published titles during the 80s which gave comics the mature themes and content of today. Though this doesn’t chronicle any major movement, just the non-movement of a guy who lived his whole life in Cleveland as a filing clerk at a Veteran’s hospital (played by Paul Giamatti as the most cynical character he’s ever played, and that’s pretty damn cynical) meeting the most extraordinarily quirky personalities on celluloid. This mundane standout in the genre is an indie gem.

5. Superman I & II- Now this is the first instance you’ll consider me a cheat but work with me here. Director Richard Donner made in 1978 the two biggest comic book productions of all time (at the time) back-to-back, one after the other. In their lateral artistry, quality, and continuity, they flow like one movie. The story– you know it, probably better than your own national history. Krypton…Metropolis…Lex Luthor…”it’s a bird, it’s a plane…truth, justice, and the American way.” You might not know him by name but you know who Christopher Reeves is. He could fly. Which made for cruel irony when God threw him from a horse to never walk again, but nothing, Brandon Routh nor Henry Cavill, will ever take Superman away from who he was. There are other recommendations- but see them for him.

4. V for Vendetta- “Behind this mask is more than flesh Mr. Creedy. Behind this mask is an idea…and ideas are bulletproof.” This statement made by V, the chaotic terrorist who brought tyrannical Britain to its knees with fire and blood, is the summation of why comic books are great literature. A Shakespearean Hugo Weaving brings great intelligence to this revolutionary who knows life isn’t the enemy. He challenges notions, buildings, national trauma, and the deep scars of his own psyche. Like all great heroes, he forgoes himself and becomes a perennial host for the human mind.

3. Sin City- No one can leave Basin City. Its infrastructure is American Hell. Church, wealth, and politics have all converged on people as its food source (sometimes literally,) and justice is dead. Basin City, known better on the streets as “Sin City,” is inescapable because it’s a nightmare- but in nightmares this irredeemable- crime is justice. In one of his best roles, Mickey Rourke play Marv, a monolithic serial killer released from an insane asylum to walk the black and white streets of Sin, weighing wrath and sanity for a dead love. This anthology also chronicles a surgically transformed crime lord (Clive Owen) seeking to reclaim his city, and the only law enforcement left with honor (Bruce Willis) protecting the innocents from the rest of his department. The most stylish and faithful of adaptations around.

2. A History of Violence- Most people who’ve encountered this great have no inkling of its graphic novel origin, neither did director David Cronenberg, the auteur behind Eastern Promises and the Goldblum, 86′ remake of The Fly, but with that in mind he decided to put his own spin on the acclaimed indie title. Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) has run a small town diner in rustic Millbrook, Indiana his whole life. That’s his story–until two Philly gangsters walk in to stage a robbery, Stall kills them both with exacting fury, and after has no explanation of how it occurred–his family isn’t so sure. When two spheres of consciousness (involving Ed Harris and William Hurt) collide, you have a film transcendent of the genre and a lesson in violence known only to a dark sect of humanity.

1. Batman Begins/The Dark Knight- Say what you will but these films are two thirds of a whole and Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece will have every brushstroke. Christian Bale is Batman. No arguments. (His voice rocks, okay, or at least you’ll agree when he’s physically beating you.) Even more importantly though, he nails Bruce Wayne, the human half. Most of these tales of noir revolve around a lost city in which their antiheroes fight for something personal. Wayne is a man who fights only for his city, he will not lose it to the cancer inherent to itself, even if he has to lose himself to the worst memory in his life. Nolan, his brother Johnathan, and David Goyer collaborate to script Gotham: its knights, kings, and pawns as the most compelling and profoundly tragic they’ve ever been while including a political subtext–with Heath Ledger portraying the city’s cancer personified, a terrorist so elusive that Batman will suspend all ethics, “the one rule,” and do whatever it takes to find him (sound like anyone we shot lately?)–so smooth that this film is quintessential comics stuff but also one of the most relevant analogues of the decade. Ledger’s terrifying interpretation of the Man Who Laughs is a key ingredient to the franchise’s success but only because it works in beautiful harmony with a perfect symphony- that wonderfully chaotic chord. This is still 3 years after its release, quite simply, the one to beat. In 2111, it’ll still be the one to beat. (Lest the Dark Knight truly Rises.)

Mirror Mirror: This is one of the few revamps actually being made with younger audiences in mind. Tarsem Singh (The Fall & most recently Immortals) brings his master-class cinematography and art direction to his fourth feature film. Julia Roberts is the classic Queen seeking to claim the orphan throne from Snow White (played by British-American newcomer Lily Collins) and banishes her when she wins the lust of her heart (Armie Hammer playing comically unhinged prince.) So far, Singh is one-for-three with The Fall being truly great cinema, and the other two not so much. No doubt it’ll look good at least and win the hearts of children.

Snow White & the Huntsman: This trailer which released first, seems to characterize everything working against these films in trying to attain “Twilight” money. For starters, it stars Kristen Stewart as the “fairest” protagonist, and then it’s directed by Rupert Sanders, who has never directed a movie before. Sounds bad? Looks amazing. They must’ve brought in Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) for the concept art because these creature designs are completely inventive. The folk tale is given a LOTR reimagining. There are war scenes of epic scope in which witch-queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) tries to consume Snow’s heart to become immortal. Not accurate but awesome. All the dwarves who essentially have no star value in the other one are played here by British supporting actors of the highest caliber (Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Nick Frost, and Eddie Izzard–whoa.) You even get Chris Hemsworth…still playing Thor. Usually I’d be pretty upset that an adaptation isn’t being respectful, but with its own dose of artistic ambition, this could be one of those gold standard, summer blockbusters remembered 35 years from now. (Okay, so it probably won’t be the next Jaws but still…) 

As Steve Jobs recently exemplified, every prominent institution and agency that towers over your life at any given moment was imbued with its stature and substance by a single personality at some point in history. Not only was John Edgar Hoover its first direcor and key architect but, almost unequivocally given its present reach and pull, the man was the FBI. This is historical fact. What veteran director Clint Eastwood tries to majorly explore in his biographical depiction of the “G__Man” is conjecture. There may be a lot of  evidence in favor of his interpretation but, more on that later.

This film undeniably announces Fall, the Oscar season, and it shows. The unsaturated cinematography undusts the past. Costumes, sets, and especially makeup is of the highest caliber. The few dramatic chords sneak in accordingly, thus never overriding Dustin Lance Black’s heavy labor of scripting aspects of decades relevant to J. as an individual, and as an institution. As you’re anticipating, Leonardo DiCaprio does sell both these aspects with his usual good graces, but his emotional journey isn’t a solo act (more, later.) The aged accent near the beginning in 1972 may seem a little heavy-handed but it works in perfect tandem with his vigorous overachiever in 1919. “Speedy” Hoover is ambitious and highly envious towards all in the Bureau and those officeholders who would see his power restricted, blooming a great paranoia. Through his years, Hoover would cruelly compile personal files on over six presidents while superguarding his own closeted lifestyle, ensuring a lifelong tenure.

Armie Hammer plays the most soulful of the supporting cast as Agent Tolson, Hoover’s right-hand agent, and unadmitted lover. Hoover’s great tragedy lies in a man so deceptive, he won’t even admit to himself his true feelings. This is the story that wanted to be told and it’s all well developed (plus when they tell you the two agents shared vacations and hotel rooms, it all sounds pretty convincing,) but there’s so much despicable documentation on the man that most historians actually agree on, that one wonders why they didn’t explore dramatizing more of those events. The history they do cover is extensive and intriguing though. Faces like A. Mitchell Palmer and even Shirley Temple pop up while a good midsection of the movie is devoted to the Lindbergh Baby incident and its contribution to the Bureau’s growing power. History buffs will love this movie. Most movie-goers will not for the same reasons.

Final Verdict: A slow, introspective pace, a half wasted supporting cast, and a somewhat missed opportunity in the in main arc leads me to recommend J. Edgar to the historically fanatic or ignorant.