Hey Everyone.
Live from the YouTubes, here’s a bunch of set videos from recent Los Angeles filming for “The Dark Knight Rises.” There’s a little something for everyone here.
First up, it’s Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway under a bridge:
And here’s some footage of the villain, Bane’s, headquarters:
Close-up of a Gotham Police Department truck anyone?
A brief glimpse of The Batpod:
Credit to Wu Da Man Films.
Via 
CosmicBook News, here’s a pretty comprehensive list of where “Man of Steel” will be filming in Chicago for the balance of the week:
Third Act Pictures is preparing the area for some upcoming filming with the full cooperation of the Mayor’s Office, The Illinois Film Office, The Chicago Film Office and the Chicago Police Department. The City has issued street parking permits for their production vehicles. For this reason there will be NO PARKING on the following streets:
Beginning 5pm Tuesday, September 13th to 12am Thursday, September 15th
South side of Adams from Canal to Clinton
Both sides of Clinton from Adams to Van Buren
Both sides of Quincy from Clinton to Jefferson
Both sides of Jefferson from Adams to Van Buren
Both sides of Jackson from Clinton to Canal
7am to 7pm Friday, September 16th
South side of Adams from Canal to Clinton
East side of Clinton from Adams to Jackson
As always, photos are appreciated.
If it’s Wednesday, it’s time for Film Bits. Here’s a quick look at what other film blogs around WordPress are 
talking about this week.
Completely Overrated reviews “Our Idiot Brother” and finds it a “warm-hearted dramedy.”
Cameron Rice is the latest to weigh in on George Lucas and the “Star Wars” Blu-ray DVDs.
Ali on the Run says dance parties are the cure.
SibatMedia does a mini-review of “American Werewolf in London,” a horror film from the early 1980s that includes the very lovely Jenny Agutter.
IndieFilmLaw on social media for the indie film producer.
Zentertainment Weekly on the London premiere of Real Steel. Jesus … someone made a “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots” movie …
Reel Talk reviews “Moneyball” with Brad Pitt.
And RagnarFan on the news that J.J. Abrams has signed on to direct the “Star Trek” sequel.
Looks like The Windy City has officially become The City of Tomorrow. Chicago shooting continues on “Man of Steel.”
From our tipster, Gomez, who writes of yesterday’s shoot:
“I work in the black building in the picture on the the third floor. I had a great view of all the extras rehearsing. They moved in a lot. Then POOF, the set is in Union Station this morning (9/14/11). Extras are running up the stairs in the Great Hall.”
From the amazing @mogulnick, here's some new set photos:
credit to @katefhill (via TwitPic)
You can find still more updates at MyChicagoConcierge.
In Slate this morning, film critic Fred Kaplan sings the praises of the upcoming Blu-ray DVD 
release of Orson Welles’ classic “Citizen Kane.” This is, hands-down, one of my top two or three favorite films of all time. And Kaplan makes a compelling argument for purchasing a Blu-ray player so you can see this film in its full glory.
Here’s the nut graf:
“That [Kane] 2002 DVD was a revelation at the time, so much brighter and clearer than the murky 16 mm prints that most of us had seen on TV or at college film societies. But as DVD technology improved, as digital artisans refined their skills, and as the studios released discs of other classic films that bore the fruits of this progress (e.g., the gorgeous DVDs of Casablanca, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon, and even old silents by Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin), the digital Citizen Kane didn’t hold up. It was too bright, too clean; the dirt and grime had been cleared away, but so had a good deal of the texture, the depth, and the sense of film grain. (John Lowry, the brilliant pioneer in digital restoration who worked on that version of Kane, admitted to me a couple years later that he’d gone too far; the field was still very young, he said, and it took him a while to learn all its lessons.)
The new Blu-ray is just as spotless (more so, actually), but it also retains the texture, the grain, and all the rest. In those startling shots where director Orson Welles and his cinematographer, Greg Toland, light the set so everything from close-up foreground to distant background is in focus, we finally do see everything clearly. In that last shot of all of Kane’s discarded junk in the warehouse, we see what all the junk is. Facial expressions, bric-a-brac on shelves, the full jolt of the jump-cuts from a dark scene to a bright scene and all the shades-of-gray scenes in between—everything is clear and looking very much like film.”
Read the full story here.
And to mark the occasion, The Hollywood Reporter has put together a slideshow of some of the studio’s best-known and best-loved films
They include Wim Wenders’ “Faraway, So Close,” from 1993; “Crumb,” from 1995; “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” from 2000; “Talk to Her” from 2002 and many others.
From 1993’s “Zooropa,” here’s U2’s video for “Stay (Faraway, So Close).” It’s one of their strongest tunes from one of their best records.
TotalFilm brings a smile this morning with the news that “Avengers” actress Scarlett Johansson says she wants more fight scenes in the Joss
Johansson as "Black Widow" in Iron Man 2.
Whedon-helmed superhero flick.
As the fanboys among you are well aware, the crimson-haired actress portrays S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Natasha Romanov, aka “The Black Widow,” and her fight scenes were among the highlights of the second “Iron Man” movie.
Here’s the skinny:
“Scarlett is making a point of not being the token woman in the movie,” says ShowbizSpy. “She has had extra action scenes already but is still wanting more. She’s also been very reluctant to have her character be a love interest for the male heroes. Scarlett wants Black Widow to be on a level with the guys if not even more super!”
Okay, it’s pretty slender. But more Johansson is always better than less. Here she is in Iron Man 2.
Live from Twitter, here’s some some pix of “Man of Steel” shooting in Chicago’s downtown Loop.
Based on what I can see, it’s either the Federal complex around Dearborn or the Daley Center around State Street.
Credit to @mogulnick
Filming for “The Dark Knight Rises” continues in Los Angeles. And, courtesy of ComicBookMovie, here’s a look at The Batwing. There’s some mega-spoilers ahead, so click through at your own risk.
And we’re onto this morning’s box office rundown. “Contagion” might have ruled the weekend, but “The Help” continues to turn in seriously respectable numbers, even after five weeks in the theaters.
Name: Weekend: Total:
1. Contagion $23.13m $23,13m
2. The Help $8.7m $137m
3. Warrior $5.6m $5.6m
4. The Debt $4.9m $22m
5. Colombiana $4m $29.8m
6. Planet of the Apes $3.9m $167m
7. Shark Night 3D $3.5m $14.8m
8. Apollo 18 $2.9 $15m
9. Our Idiot Brother $2.7m $21.4m
10. Spy Kids $2.5m $34.2m
And in the Monday Must-Read, The Guardian revisits the silent era, and says one of the great tragedies is that so little of it survives. Which makes the refurbishment of a classic Polish film called “Mania” from 1918 all that much more miraculous.
The actor Cliff Robertson has died. He was 88. He was a 1968 Academy Award winner. But the fanboys among you may 
remember him best as “Uncle Ben” in the first Tober Maguire “Spiderman” movie.
From The Wrap, here’s a portion of Robertson’s obit:
“Cliff Robertson, best known for his Oscar-winning performance as a young mentally disadvantaged man who is cursed with only temporary brilliance thanks to medical science in the 1968 film “Charly,” has died at 88.
His secretary of 53 years, Evelyn Christel, told Associated Press that Robertson died in Long Island of natural causes a day after his 88th birthday.
Robertson never rose to the top ranks of leading men, but he remained a popular actor from the mid-1950s into the following century. His later roles included kindly Uncle Ben in the “Spider-Man” movies.
He also gained attention for his second marriage to actress and heiress Dina Merrill, daughter of financier E.F. Hutton and Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress to the Post cereal fortune and one of the world’s richest women. In the 1970s, Robertson blew the whistle on Columbia Pictures president David Begelman over a check-forging scandal.”
Read the full story here.
The Crunchable Net/Work
The Cineaste's Lament. 