The Mix : What are people talking about today?

‘The Dark Knight’ alternate trailer

Yes, yes. Highest grossing movie of 2008. Second highest of all time. A billion dollars in box office when all is said and done. And yet– it could have made even more money, if only they’d worked with the studio with the best batting average in the business…

We all know it’s about the toys anyway, right?

Hat tip: Mark Waid.

Pat Hingle, 1924-2009

AP News reports that Pat Hingle, the actor whose career included a recurring role as Commissioner Gordon in four Batmanfilms from 1989 to 1997, died at his home in Carolina Beach shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday after battling blood cancer. He was 84.

His career in movies and television spanned six decades, and he was also nominated for a Tony Award in 1958. Hingle’s last movie was "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," which was released in 2006.

I was lucky enough to see him perform on Braodway a decade ago, playing Ben Franklin in 1776 opposite Brent Spiner as John Adams. And much to my surprise, he was the original choice to play Elmer Gantry in the movie, before an accident knocked him out of the role and handed it to Burt Lancaster.

He will be missed.

‘Mighty Thor’ fights crime in Scotland

God of Thunder: Torvald Alexander confronted the burglar dressed as ThorKenneth Branagh can stop looking for who to cast for his Thor movie. From the London Daily Mail: Burglar flees in terror after homeowner returns from New Year party… dressed as Thor, God of Thunder

A muscle-bound building boss who came home from a New Year’s Eve fancy dress party kitted out as Thor scared off a burglar by charging at him in his superhero outfit.

Six-foot-tall fitness fanatic Torvald Alexander, 38, was wearing a full God of Thunder outfit – complete with flying red cape and tinfoil silver-winged helmet – when he spotted the raider in his front room rifling through a desk.

Mr Alexander, who runs building firm Alexander & Summers in Edinburgh, Scotland, said the burglar threw himself out of a first-floor window of his £350,000 home in the Inverleith area of the city when he opened the door and confronted him.

Lucky Ken. He doesn’t even need a costume designer anymore.

Review: ‘Babylon A.D.’

Babylon A.D. is actually two separate films, one with some noble themes worthy of exploration and one that is a derivative action film.  Unfortunately, you have to suffer through the latter before the film oddly shifts gears and begins lightly exploring the former. The film is based on Maurice Georges Dantec’s [[[Babylon Babies], a science fiction novel exploring the notion of artificial intelligence being given organic life. In an interview on the DVD, on sale Tuesday, he wisely notes that he had written the book, said what he had to say and left the rest up to the filmmakers.

In the hands of writer Éric Besnard and French director Mathieu Kassovitz, the movie is a mess. The dark near-future, Europe has collapsed and anarchy or big business rules in place of government.  Vin Diesel stars as Toorop, a mercenary, who is coerced into boydguarding a young woman, heading from his monastery home to New York City.  Given little choice, he agrees and discovers she has a chaperone, a strong-willed Michelle Yeoh.  The girl, Aurora (Mélanie Thierry), seems an innocent at first but then begins displaying knowledge and experience impossible for someone raised in solitude.

Of course they’re chased and that’s where the mindless, seen-it-before action comes in.  While Diesel excels at this sort of stuff, it was not in the least bit thrilling, with the exception of the chase across Alaska.

Upon arrival in New York, the film suddenly changes gears and tone as we begin exploring the concepts involved but they are done in a monotonous way set against opposing forces who wish to control Aurora’s immaculately conceived children and the future of mankind. While there are plenty of good notions here, they’re buried under poor acting and pacing.

Diesel and Yeoh form an interesting bond during the few quiet moments but Thierry is such a blank slate it’s hard to tell if she has any talent. Lambert Wilson and Charlotte Rampling are wasted as the creators of the AI and therefore battle over its destiny.

Kassovitz blamed 20th on butchering the film and abandoning it this August after he labored for five years on bringing it to life.  Unfortunately, after five years of development work, one expects a more even, better conceived production.  Even the music from the normally reliable Hans Zimmer is uninspired.

Fox is releasing the film with the theatrical release and an unedited version, which does not help the story one whit.  The plethora of extras are nice, especially as you hear Dantec talk about his book and it makes you long for a film that interesting.  There are the usual making of features including a nice one on the arctic chase.

A special edition two-disc set comes with a few extra features including an animated prequel (erroneously billed as a graphic novel) that fills in some of the dramatic gaps that would have enhanced the overall production. A second disc contains a digital copy for computers and iPods.

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Former Blog@Newsarama team lands at CBR as Robot6

robot6-1285239We knew they wouldn’t be gone long, the only question was where they’d end up and how quickly they’d return. And now we know– Kevin Melrose, JK Parkin, Lisa Fortuner, Tom Bondurant, Michael May, Melissa Krause, Stephanie Chan, Tim O’Shea, Chris Mautner, Jennifer de Guzman and Larry Young are now all over at CBR, under the brand Robot 6.

Which of course leads to the new question: what happened to Robots 1 through 5?

Robot 1 sank into the swamp.

Robot 2 sank into the swamp.

Robot 3 burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.

Robot 4 disappeared 24 hours after it went online.

Robot 5 was turned off after being deemed a hazard to interstellar navigation. It was exploded, sent into atmosphere, crashed into the planet, and sank into the swamp.

But the sixth robot stayed up…!

Spider-Man single again, again

A year after the events of One More Day, Spider-Man has gone back to unmarried status in the newspaper strip.

So for all of you who thought this might just be a passing phase– like me– your hopes have finally been dashed. At least, until the next reboot.

One of these days I have to write that blog post on how to save One More Day and make Peter’s actions heroic…

Hat tip: Blog@Newsarama.

And the next Doctor Who really is…

…Matt Smith?

Yes, apparently. Putting an end to all the rampant speculation, the 26 year old will be taking over the role of the Doctor in 2010.

A relative newcome to the scene, Smith already has experience working opposite companions to the Doctor, having played opposite Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) in TV adaptations of Philip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart novels The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow of the North as Jim Taylor, and again in Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

Now let the ritualized mocking of Rich Johnston commence.

And the next Doctor Who is…

…going to be revealed in exactly 12 hours from now as part of a special edition of Doctor Who Confidential to be aired on BBC ONE today at 17:35 Greenwich mean time, 12:35 PM Eastern standard time.

Following the announcement in October that David Tennant would be stepping down from his role as the Doctor at the end of 2009*, speculation has been mounting as to who would take over from him for the fifth series of this iconic BBC drama that will air in 2010.

Who do we think will get the job? Well, there’s a reason William Petersen is leaving CSI

Check back in half a day on ComicMix and see if we’re right.