halfwhiteboy

I first saw this photo spreading on Facebook of Carey Rottman, one of the victims of last week's Colorado movie theater shooting, with the Batman himself, Christian Bale. Rottman (left) with Bale at a Colorado hospital. No, he did not come as Batman, nor as Bruce Wayne. He was just in jeans and a blue t-shirt. In fact, Warner Bros. even released a statement saying that Bale was there as himself and not as a representative of the studio that released Christopher Nolan's reboot of the Batman trilogy. All the more I'm happy with his kind gesture.

It's no secret that I'm such a fan of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy -- all the way since he first recreated the Caped Crusader in Batman Begins , to his immortalizing The Joker in The Dark Knight , and up until the just-released epic conclusion to the series,  The Dark Knight Rises . So last Friday, a day after I watched TDKR, I donned a cape and cowl.

Set eight years after the events of The Dark Knight , Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy comes full circle with The Dark Knight Rises . As has been said, it's peacetime. Gotham's crime rate is at an all time low and everything seems alright. However, it all but seems like a lull between the storm because a carefully-orchestrated grand plan to bring the city down has been brewing all along. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has been reduced to a cane-toting, bearded recluse, languishing in sorrow inside his now-rebuilt mansion, Wayne Manor. His co-conspirator in the cover-up surrounding Harvey Dent's death, Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), has likewise not been the happiest either. Then the arrival of Selena Kyle (Anne Hathaway), who's been referred to in the film as a cat burglar but never as 'Catwoman,' suddenly pulls Wayne out of his hermit life. Soon enough, everyone else in Gotham is jolted by the brazen -- and very public -- terrorist ma...

I'm giddy with excitement over The Dark Knight Rises . I've been checking sureseats.com daily but they still aren't selling tickets as I'm writing this. I wanna make sure that I catch it on opening day, which is non-negotiable, by the way. I've been a fan of director Christopher Nolan's reinterpretation of the Caped Crusader's tale ever since Batman Begins , where I loved how he tried as much as possible to ground everything close to reality. Now this admiration shot up to stratospheric heights when The Joker came out in the sequel. Oh yes, I loved the late Heath Ledger's take on the character so much that I dressed up as the anarchist-clown for Halloween that year. Why so serious? Now The Joker is but a distant memory, and it's Bane at the forefront this time. Anyway, the makers of TDKR have recently decided to whet our appetites even more with a downloadable 49-page document containing production notes from the film. Here are a few factua...