Filming on The Dark Knight Rises has moved to New York City and it looks like it wil again be focused around the citizens of Gotham taking to the streets in protest of something.

All of the filming that was seen involved the three desert camo Tumblers we’ve seen showing up all over the place, and at least some scenes did involve Batman (Christian Bale) and Bane (Tom Hardy).  The primary focus seems to be on a confrontation between the Gotham City police and a huge group of rioters, but whatever is firing them up is unclear.

All I can say is thank goodness Christopher Nolan doesn’t like to shoot indoor on soundstages because it gives us just that much more to speculate about what is happening in these scenes.

In this take, it appears the cops run past the rioters more than actually fight with them.

In this version you can hear a bit of the dialog of the police saying “Disperse … disperse now or you will be fired upon … this is your last warning … disperse now …” and then the fight happens.

More of a street level take on the happenings.

A good close up of the fighting.

For the past week I’ve been in Irvine, CA on business. I’ve had no issues tooling around in my rental car, getting to work, my hotel, the nearby shopping center and so on. I was actually getting fairly impressed with myself when I found my way to the gym I have a guest pass at after having only been there once.

On Friday afternoon I made my first foray deeper into the heart of the city (for reasons I shall discuss further in another post), and while it was somewhat crazy, it wasn’t horrible.

Then came this morning. A good friend of mine was going to have a booth at a comic book show down at the L.A. Convention Center, about a 40 mile drive from me. I haven’t seen him in person since Aug. 2004, so I decided it was worth the jaunt.

… whomever designed the L.A. freeway system should be taken out and summarily executed.

I have driven in a lot of places, and never have I seen a situation like this.  Lets say you have 6 lanes wide, going from left to right:

• lanes 1 & 2 become a different highway than you started on
• lanes 3, 4 and 5 are the highway you want
• lane 6 is the exit lane

Making sense so far?  Lets fast forward two miles:

• lanes 1 & 2 becomes your highway
• lanes 3 & 4 become another highway
• lanes 5 & 6 are another highway

One more mile:

• lanes 1 & 2 become another highway
• lanes 3 & 4 are now your highway
• lane 5 is another highway joining you
• lane 6 is an exit lane

See what happened to your highway?  You had to change lanes three times to stay on what is your highway although you never left the paved area you were on to begin with.  So you end up changing lanes repeatedly which just sucks as L.A. drivers aren’t the friendliest at letting you in.  Perhaps it’s better when you live here and you can anticipate the switches, but when you’re waiting for a GPS to fill you in, its less than fun.

Yes, yes, I know a million people have picked on the L.A. freeway system, but good grief this has to be one of the seven layers of hell.

It’s episode #167 and Scattercast is on the roafd

Still working on the file format issue, but the new episode is up on iTunes.

This week it’s all about my time in Irvine, CA and what inspires people.  Enjoy!

subscribe to Scattercast via iTunes.

21 Jump Street was always an idiotic concept for a TV show, but the series lingers on people’s memories because it ended up launching the career of some unknown actor named Johnny Depp.

Comedic actor Jonah Hill picked up the rights to the television series and while it wasn’t clear if he was going serious with the project or not, and … no, he isn’t.  Although Depp will have a cameo somewhere in the film, this looks like it will be nothing but being close to a parody fo the original TV series, which few people remember, and it will just turn into another vehicle for Hill.

You can see the red band trailer below (meaning it isn’t safe for work) and judge for yourself, but this looks just about as unentertaining as possible.

The ongoing march of old TV shows becoming movies continues, this time with Bill Paxton rumored to be setting up to direct an update Kung Fu.

Starring the late David Carradine, Kung Fu ran for three seasons in the 1970′s and focused on a Shaolin Monk who was searching for his real family who abandoned hm.  While it was a decent show, and one my father happens to love to this day, I have no desire to now go to a movie theater and watch another take on it.

Nothing is yet booked on this project, but it definitely looks like it wil happen, and, as with so many of these reboots of old TV series, no one will care.  This is mainly because the vast majority fo people 30 and younger will have no clue what the concept is about.  While the series pops up from time to time on cable channels, it has been decades since it had a serious run anywhere, and even those who do remember it, many will have forgotten it over the years.  I’m not quite certain who they think will be the target audience will be for this project, but I’m sure some silly amount of money will be poured into it needlessly.

When we start going back to long forgotten series such as this one, or even The Fall Guy that is currently in active development, one has to wonder what’s next.  Is someone working on the script yet for B.J. and the Bear?  My Mother the Car?  Mister Ed? … oh wait … that one actually looks to be happening.

Could someone please just shoot me in the head?

Just because we haven’t heard about a project in a while doesn’t mean its dead. Sadly this seems to be the case with the proposed reboot of The Fall Guy.

We haven’t heard anything about a new film version of the 1980′s TV series The Fall Guy since July 2010, but it is now rearing its ugly head again as rumors are circulating that Martin Campbell is in talks to direct. Campbell most recently directed Green Lantern, but before that disaster he also directed Casino Royale, arguably the best James Bond film ever.

There is no word on when this rumor may come to be, and there is still no word on a start date for production, but considering how other 1980′s TV series turned into films have done, it’s surprising this project is even still under development.  Only time will tell how this turns out, but my money is on, “really, really bad.”