Christian Bale

This post has been corrected. See the note below for details. “The Avengers,” “Dark Knight Rises” and Martin Freeman are among the films and performers nominated for the MTV Movie Awards. What’s that? You thought Hollywood’s awards season was over? Well, it’s just getting started for fan-favorite movies that rarely have a shot at the shiny hardware for best-movie Oscars and Golden Globes. The MTV Movie Awards will be announced April 14 after you —  yes, you! — get to vote in the online popularity contest. The coveted Golden Popcorn statuette will be handed out in such offbeat categories as best kiss, best shirtless moment and best fight, in addition to more traditional categories such as breakthrough performance and movie of the year. James Bond jilted: Mendes rejects “Skyfall” follow-up Freeman is nominated for “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” in a […]

For fans of fantastic entertainment, it was a bountiful year at the box office. The highest-grossing movies of 2012 starred a collection of superheroes, two strong young woman with mean archery skills (Katniss Everdeen and Merida from “Brave”), a suit-sporting super spy and a mild-mannered hobbit who embarks on an unexpected adventure — not to mention a coven of sparkly vampires and a talking stoner teddy bear. With so many movies to choose from, it’s easy to see how audiences might have overlooked a few gems. So as the year draws to a close, we’ve assembled our top picks for films to belatedly check out — as well as a few that no doubt warrant repeat viewings. “Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter” Yeah, yeah, so it didn’t take the box office by storm, and critics griped that the movie wasn’t funny. […]

The defining moment in the history of the fictitious city called Gotham is when a trembling young boy in a tuxedo — he’s dressed up for a night at the theater — kneels next to his slain mother and father as a gunman runs off into the night. The gun-metal grimness of that scene in the 2005 film “Batman Begins” echoes in every part of director Christopher Nolan’s bleak and bruising franchise. And now, after the shooting at a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colo., the record-breaking Hollywood franchise will be remembered in shades of funereal black and lurid tabloid red. Police said the 24-year-old suspect had “painted” hair and told them after the shooting that he was the Joker, the warped murderer played by Heath Ledger in Nolan’s previous Batman film, “The Dark Knight.” According […]

When director Christopher Nolan brought Batman out of the shadows seven years ago in “Batman Begins” and carried on the character’s adventures in “The Dark Knight,” he produced a hero and setting appropriate for the times: a grim, hard-nosed loner in a world racked by corruption, shaken by terrorism and standing on shaky moral ground. With the concluding chapter “The Dark Knight Rises” poised to plunge into blackness once again, here’s a refresher on what brought us to the brink: CLICK THROUGH THE PHOTO GALLERY ABOVE TO REVISIT KEY CHARACTERS AND EVENTS.  BE SURE THE “CAPTIONS ON” OPTION IS ACTIVATED. (And if you haven’t seen either film, just an obvious warning that spoilers lie ahead.) – Oliver Gettell RECENT AND RELATED Christopher Nolan opens up about Bane choice Christian Bale says goodbye to Gotham ‘DKR’: Where to see the IMAX […]

The stars of “The Dark Knight Rises” are walking the red carpet at the film’s world premiere in New York City, and we’re live-streaming the event. The film, which opens in theaters Friday, caps Nolan’s epic Batman trilogy, which stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle (also known as Catwoman). Attending the premiere are Nolan, Bale, Hathaway, Tom Hardy (who plays villain Bane), Michael Caine (Alfred), Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon), Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Morgan Freeman, Christopher Nolan, writers Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer and producers Emma Thomas and Charles Roven. Nolan’s first Batman film, 2005′s “Batman Begins,” earned an Oscar nod, and 2008′s “The Dark Knight” won two Oscars, including a posthumous supporting actor win for Heath Ledger, who stunned critics and theatergoers as the Joker. “The Dark Knight Rises” is poised to […]

From a distance, Christopher Nolan’s Gotham City sure doesn’t look like much. The “skyline” begins to emerge over the horizon in the rolling green farmlands about 50 miles north of London, but there are no gothic spires or granite citadels, just the slanted, pocked roofs of two boxy metal buildings. But nearing the complex on a winding two-lane road, the immensity of the filmmaker’s make-believe metropolis comes into focus: The structures that looked squat from afar are actually 15 stories tall — and as long as 81-story skyscrapers lying on their sides. Constructed more than 85 years ago to house Britain’s Royal Airship Works, the giant coffin-shaped sheds sat unused or ignored for years, and waiting for some great undertaking, after the nation’s flagship dirigible went down in flames in a horrific 1930 crash in France. The field mice had […]

A new trailer for “The Dark Knight Rises” was just released, a month before the conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s epic Batman trilogy is slated to hit the big screen on July 20. Although it contains much of the same footage introduced in the last trailer and the six-minute preview released in December, the new trailer adds several new scenes that will spark some speculation among fans of the comics, most notably a face-off between Batman (Christian Bale) and villain Bane (Tom Hardy). In the scene, Bane calls the Caped Crusader by name — “Mr. Wayne.” We see a few blows, then the trailer cuts to Bane walking away, Batman’s shattered mask in hand, leaving fans to wonder if Nolan drew from the punishing fight scene that left Bruce Wayne with a broken back in the comics’ “Knightfall” arc. The new […]

The newest trailer for “The Dark Knight Rises” reveals the scale of the film – collapsing bridges, street riots, and that familar football-field calamity — but the most intriguing moments belong to franchise newcomers Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt,  Marion Cotillard and the baneful Tom Hardy. Although a portion of the trailer, which runs 2 minutes and 19 seconds, is comprised of footage from the six-minute preview released in December, it’s the most that tight-lipped co-writer and director Christopher Nolan has revealed about the third and final installment in his epic Batman trilogy, which began with “Batman Begins” in 2005 and continued with 2008′s “The Dark Knight,” winning two Oscars. The trailer opens with Selina Kyle’s voice over a soft, eerie piano, telling Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), “There’s a storm coming.” When he remarks that she seems as if she is looking forward to it, […]

This post has been corrected, as detailed below. LONDON — The University of London’s stolid Senate House echoes with secrets and hidden history — it was headquarters for Britain’s propaganda and censorship department and “1984” author George Orwell used it as a model for his Ministry of Truth — so it was a fitting workplace last July for Christopher Nolan and the masked ambitions of “The Dark Knight Rises.” “Back in Gotham, back in Chris Nolan’s city,” actor Morgan Freeman said as he stepped past barbed wire and debris used in a just-finished scene. A moment later, he added: “The only drawback is this is the last one we get to work on with him. And a lot of us won’t really get that until later. It’s not until the curtain goes down that you think, ‘Jesus, that’s the last […]

What’s the most anticipated movie of 2012? Well, “The Hobbit” seems poised to become a global happening and there’s already intense fan curiosity about “The Avengers“ and “The Amazing Spider-Man“ but, really, there’s no way any of those upcoming movies can compete with the Gotham City behemoth created by Christopher Nolan and his team. The latest proof: The new trailer for “The Dark Knight Rises” smashed the record for most combined downloads through the iTunes Movie Trailers site and the iTunes Trailers iOS app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The trailer went online at 10 a.m. Monday morning and was viewed more than 12.5 million times in the next 24 hours, breaking the previous record — held by the trailer for Joss Whedon’s “The Avengers” — by well over 2 million. If you haven’t seen it already, here it is … and if you have seen it, […]