More Dark Knight sites popping up every day

If you go to whysoserious.com/masoleum, you’ll see a giant safe. If you set your computer’s clock to 7:38 a.m., the safe opens, and inside the safe is this message:


Click for detail

“Nice working thinking outside the box. A clown should never take anything at face value. Put your feet up, take a little rest. I’ll be in touch in a few days, and then I’ll have another little job for you.”

Previous “jobs” have revealed photos of The Joker and even the teaser trailer, so maybe this time we’ll get a poster or a longer trailer with footage.

With The Joker involved, who knows?

Other new official Dark Knight marketing sites include Gotham Unified School District, Acme Security Systems (including a “toxin watch” for The Scarecrow’s fear toxin), and Gotham Victims Advocate Foundation.

And my personal favorite, Gotham Cab Company.

And!

Here’s one for the Gotham National Bank.

To help victims of the Nerve Toxin attack, Gotham National Bank said today the company will contribute $100,000 to numerous local relief agencies throughout the area to help with relief and rebuilding efforts

It’s nice to see these sites reflecting how the events of Batman Begins are still being felt by the good people of Gotham City.

Batman’s got a lot of work to do.

And how much would you like to bet that in the months leading up to the movie, all these sites get “Jokered”?

Also, don’t forget to read The Gotham Times and The Joker’s hilariously mean-spirited parody for lots of information about the state of play in Batman’s beleaguered city.

Each one is four pages, so make sure you read them all.

And if you follow all the circled words in The Joker’s version, it makes some kind of riddle.

And there’s also Gotham City Rail, Gotham Police Department, community action group We Are the Answer, Remembering Gina (for the tragically slain Gina Tortericci) and a new personality profile test conducted by The Joker.

Awesome.

Ledger's Joker on the new Empire cover

The big reveal is complete, and here’s the new photo of Heath Ledger as The Joker, from next summer’s Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight, on the cover of the new issue of Empire.


Click for high-res 

How awesome and creepy and disturbing is that?

On all counts, very.

I do wish that Empire hadn’t inserted their logo behind his head, because they’ve unintentionally made the entire top of the picture look a little off.

Oh, well.

What matters is that The Joker looks very, very scary, and I’m still pleasantly surprised that director Christopher Nolan have the guts to go as far as they have with his look.

The skin on his face is a mess, and it looks like he’s got chemical burns on his right hand.

And don’t forget these recent comments from Michael Caine:

“And when you see the make-up – he looks like he’s mentally gone. He puts the make-up on to disguise himself and then goes and never takes it off again, or washes, so gradually it looks like leprosy. I’m a great fan of Christopher Nolan. I thought ‘Batman Begins’ was the best Batman I’d ever seen. And I think this one will be better than that.”

It looks like he’s got more scars and burns on his face, and that they’re caked with clown makeup. We already know that he smears clown makeup over the nasty, blistery scars on his face from this photo:

Scary, wicked and evil. Just like The Joker should be.

The Dark Knight opens on July 18, 2008, but we’ll get to see Ledger’s Joker in action in a short film debuting before IMAX prints of Will Smith’s I Am Legend on December 14.

New Indiana Jones photos!

Yes!

Here are three new images from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which bull-whips its way into a theater near me on May 22, 2008.

Harrison Ford is still a bad-ass. I’d say that I hope I still look that good when I’m 65, but hell, I don’t look that good now.

Karen Allen, Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, Shia LaBeouf (pictured) and John Hurt co-star.

Steven Spielberg directs.

Have I mentioned lately that life is good?

These first showed up on the film’s IMDb boards and have since shown up on all the big online movie news outlets. And since Paramount hasn’t sued anybody yet, I’m assuming it’s okay to post them.

(The fine legal folks are Paramount are welcome to let me know if these need to disappear.)