It's been a while since we heard anything about Johnny Depp's second foray into the world of comic book adaptation, otherwise known as Rex Mundi. Back in 2006, Depp purchased the rights to Arvid Nelson's Dark Horse series under his Infinitum Nihil banner, with the intention to star as Dr. Julien Sauniere.

To refresh your memory, Rex Mundi is set in an alternate history where Martin Luther was assassinated, the Reformation never took place, and the Catholic Church still reigns supreme. The comics take place in the 1930's, in a world where the Inquisition still runs rampant, Europe is ruled by monarchs, but magic manages to exist. Into this walks Dr. Sauniere, who finds himself investigating the disappearance of a medieval scroll, and a trail of horrific ritual murders. You can find out more on its official site, if you're interested. Depp was drawn to the project not because he's a comic reader, but because he's keenly interested in the Templar Knights, and "loves that kind of research" according to Barry Levine, who's co-producing.

According to MTV, Rex now has a script, penned by Jim Uhls, and is looking for a director. Depp has been right in the thick of all the decision making, says his co-producer Barry Levine. "The second draft is now coming in from Jim, and Warner Bros. is pretty excited about it. They came up with a couple of names for directors, so now we just need Johnny to look at the list. It all begins and ends with Johnny. He's got to be happy with the script, and he gave his notes, so we'll see what happens next."

When he's not covering film for us, Christopher Campbell is out living a bold double life, instead covering film for Spout Blog, and by way of his derring-do, he's come across a relatively watchable bootleg of some of the ill-received Comic-Con footage from The Spirit, and to borrow his incredibly apt reaction: "The scene you heard about is actually worse than you imagined."

Their Kevin Kelly tried to warn us, as did our own Elisabeth Rappe, and the latest trailer brought forth its own wave of doubt, but witnessing it for myself is something else. I can't speak for Will Eisner's original comic-book creation, though a couple of my pals have assured me that Frank Miller's take on the material is pretty far from it, and while I'm down for a Sin City 2, I'd really rather it be a more intentional affair than this likely farce.

Are any of you fans still willing to give this project the benefit of the doubt, or are toilet-smashing gags the new par for the course?

Holy crap! Holy crap. I don't get too many occasions to truly geek out -- go all giddy with excitement, rationality be damned -- but this is one of them. I may have previously mentioned my abiding love for Rian Johnson's Brick: my favorite film of 2005 and one of my favorites of the decade. I was already beyond psyched for The Brothers Bloom, Johnson's 2008 con man follow-up; pre-release buzz has been solid to great. I'm itching to declare the talented writer-director the Next Big Thing: someone with the cleverness of Tarantino and the chops of Fincher, but more heart. It's a little premature right now, but I'll get back to you after I watch Bloom.

Anyway, if I love something more than Brick, it's intelligent science-fiction. And lo: IGN reports that Rian Johnson's next project will be a film called Looper, a dark, violent, time travel-themed sci-fi story in the vein of Philip K. Dick. Johnson compares it to the first Terminator: relatively small-scale, character-driven sci-fi with time travel used as a plot device. That's all the details he gave on the plot, but I'm not sure how a project could be more tailored to my current obsessions and sensibilities.

The Brothers Bloom is supposed to come out on October 24th; I'm holding out hope that it will also make an appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. You can see the trailer here.

If there's one movie descriptive that can actually get my jaded heart racing, it's "in the style of L.A. Confidential." Sure, it's glib, and probably sells the potential film and its source material short, but I can't help it, it's a magical phrase. And The Hollywood Reporter (by way of Lakeshore Entertainment) used it to describe Barry Levinson's latest movie.

Levinson is set to direct an adaptation of Peter Dexter's novel Train, a story set in 1950's Southern California. It centers around Miller Packard, a white sergeant in the San Diego Police Department, who has little time for the hypocrisy and racism of his age. An avid golfer, he befriends a troubled young African-American caddy named Lionel "Train" Walk, who harbors knowledge of an unreported murder that haunts his past. The city politics and racism of the 50's surround the murder investigation, and threaten their friendship.

Dexter's books have been popular in Hollywood recently -- he was the pen behind Mulholland Falls and The Paperboy is currently in production with Paul Verhoven and Jan de Bont. Unlike with Falls, he won't be penning the script this time around. That job falls to Allison Burnett, who's a pretty popular writer at Lakeshore, adapting Fame and penning Untraceable for them.

Hopefully, a Cinematical reader or two can chime in on the book. From its reviews, the source material sounds pretty enticing. Here's hoping this can not only be a comeback for Levinson, but a noir rival for L.A. Confidential.

What is the appropriate reaction to have when a movie you love, adore, and cherish is somehow ... improved? I know, it's a strange feeling. I happen to think my all-time favorite film (A L I E N) is much better in its theatrical version than in its extended -- but where Aliens is concerned, I much prefer the longer version! It's something you have to approach on a case-by-case basis, of course, and it's the sort of movie-nerd activity that should be attempted only by those with a lot of free time -- or someone who gets paid to write about this sort of stuff. (Fortunately I am both.)

So it was with MUCH enthusiasm that I sat down with the brand-new Director's Cut of Dark City, a film that I absolutely love a whole lot -- and I know I'm not nearly alone when I say that. Like many of the finest sci-fi films, Dark City was pretty much overlooked for a good long while -- put once it hit DVD and heavy rotation on the cable channels, the sci-fi freaks found a film worth watching and re-watching, to say nothing of analyzing, deconstructing, and debating. And so I happily continue that trend by explaining what the fans will find in New Line's very impressive new Dark City package...

The first Brad Anderson film I saw was Session 9. (I also spent $27 on the out-of-print DVD, which I've watched at least three times in the last year. It's a great movie.) And then I saw his dark and twisted love letter to Alfred Hitchcock: The Machinist. Wow. Aside from Christian Bale's staggering performance, it's just a rock-solid, old-fashioned mind-bender of a noir thriller. Good stuff. Most recently I saw the director's train-bound and icy chiller Transsiberian at Sundance, which (shocking!) I also enjoyed quite a bit.

Which leads us to a logical question. What can Brad Anderson fans expect next? According to Bloody-Disgusting, the writer / director is not straying far from the genre fare any time soon. First on the filmmaker's plate looks to be All Lost Souls, which is a "serial killer movie," and then perhaps Vanishing, which Anderson describes as "a smart post-apocalyptic horror film." Sounds good so far.

But even further down the road, Anderson could be looking at a remake of the 1943 occult flick The Seventh Victim -- and a Cronenbergian thriller called Concrete Island, which just might reunite the director with two of his Machinist collaborators: screenwriter Scott Kosar and low-key superstar Christian Bale. And to all those projects, I say this: Cool. Get to work, Brad!

[ Thanks to Bloody-Dee for the cool info. ]

Right about here is where all the gushing and excitement and enthusiasm should begin, because I'll tell you right off the "bat" that Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is cause for celebration indeed. But then you'll figure out -- after only one sentence -- that I pretty much loved this movie, and then you'll head off to another, more unpredictable film critic. But it's the WHY that interests me so much. What I enjoyed about Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Hellboy 2 could probably be covered in one lengthy -- and inevitably nerd-tastic -- conversation between the two of us. But The Dark Knight... Well, clearly we're approaching a whole new level here.

Several of the pre-release gushings are accurate. Some say "Scorsesian" and others reference Michael Mann. Many spend paragraphs on the (truly amazing) penultimate performance by Heath Ledger, while others will revel in the grown-up tone or epic scope of the film. What amazed me most about The Dark Knight, among several things, is that the flick's got more layers than an onion farm -- and yet it never loses touch with the idea of FUN. True that we're talking about a comic book fun that's decidedly more melancholy than the cinematic exploits of The Marvel Gang, but dang if TDK isn't supremely satisfying for about a dozen different reasons.

Update: Because of the futzy Empire link, here's the trailer up top.

Update 2: The trailer has now gone live over at Apple.

Update 3: Beautiful trailer stills in the gallery below ...

We could have embedded a half-decent YouTube version a few hours ago, but considering the movie we're dealing with (and owing in no small part to professional courtesy) we decided to wait for the official release of the very first Watchmen trailer. It's available (exclusively, for the time being) at Empire, although you'll almost definitely see the clip this weekend when you head out to see The Dark Knight. (Notice I didn't say "if.") Again, click here for the trailer.

Having read Moore & Gibbons' Watchmen only once -- and therefore being a relative newbie -- I cannot comment on the geek-tastic little pieces of minutiae that are undoubtedly bouncing through this trailer. Is Dr. Manhattan the right shade of blue? Does Rorshach's mask look accurate? How Batmanny does Nite Owl look? And what of the infamous newsstand? (Are there pirates?)

As a huge fan of trailers in general, I'd say this is a very well-balanced and powerful promo clip. Newcomers will see a stylish-looking adventure story full of weird-looking characters -- and the hardcore fans will probably really like what they see. (Plus that's one unique explosion I just saw.) I'll leave it to our resident comics wizards to delve a bit deeper. Well, our wizards and our readers, obviously.

Topics for discussion: The music. The costumes. The cast. The production design. The heart-crushing disappointment you'll feel if the movie sucks even though you know if probably won't. At all.

Lionsgate has now officially released the full-length trailer for The Spirit that Film School Rejects leaked last night. It's over on Yahoo! Movies in high definition, so even if you managed to catch the leaked version, it's worth checking out.

I have to say, this looks nothing like I thought it would. I wish I could say that was a good thing but ... wow. I am not feeling this at all. It's not the classic noir of Will Eisner's comics, it's not really a Sin City rip-off, it's just strange and creepy. The shots of the floating heads and the Spirit falling out of the woman's mouth remind me way too much of those eerie French safe sex ads.

I also have to complain about the emphasis placed on the femme fatales. I shrugged off the poster and the website; I accepted the excuse that to lure in the boys, you have to use the sexy girls. I also realize that just about all the actresses in the movie are bigger names than Gabriel Macht, who's the man behind the mask. But this is a full length trailer, and the Spirit himself is still persona non grata. When are we finally going to meet him?

I dig you Frank Miller, I really do, but I don't know if I can go down this road with you. I am hoping that this is just a really bad trailer, and the film is actually a nice visit to the land of neo-noir.

The Spirit opens December 25th, 2008.

The pop-culture appetite for Batman seems inexhaustible; thousands of comic books, several movies, endless animated iterations, some of which are quite good and some of which are rather bad. Is there any real need to return to the character beyond the profit motive, though? After the financial and critical success of Batman Begins, the powers-that-be behind The Dark Knight could have made a safe bet of a sequel; a little more action, a few more actors, more of the same and a few extra explosions.

What's telling about The Dark Knight, though, is how risky it is -- how it's bold and brave and truly exciting, full of rich and strong performances and some real ideas along the way. Why return to Batman? It turns out that for Christopher Nolan, the reason to come back is that there's something to say about, and with, the character even after decades of stories and multiple reinventions. I was hoping The Dark Knight would be good; I had no idea that director and co-writer Christopher Nolan was going to make a film that not only addressed the philosophical and political conflict between the rule of force and the rule of law but also takes on the timeless clash between order and chaos ... and, along the way, evokes everything from Michael Mann's Heat to John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. ...