AFTER DARK

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly commitment. We want you to have a rundown of the best articles of the day. Newsworthy, opinionated or otherwise, we count down today’s best because we owe it to you, our beloved reader.

We begin this evening with the coolest piece of Dark Knight Rises marketing that you’re likely to see, courtesy of the folks at /Film. Spotted at the intersection of Sunset and La Brea avenues in Hollywood, this billboard is not a graphic, but an actual billboard that appears to have exploded into the shape of the bat symbol. And here, we thought Christopher Nolan wasn’t down with 3D.

1. Giving Brave a fair shake – While I do so enjoy my own write-up of Pixar’s Brave, I also enjoy the review of AV Club’s Tasha Robinson, who goes to great lengths to give a fair look to Pixar’s latest. Few seem to be walking away from this film without being clouded by preconception or prejudgment, and her review is spot on in its identification of all that went well and that which didn’t go so well.

2. Kick-Ass 2 goes to high school – Even though its likely to never happen, people are still talking about a Kick-Ass sequel. New details have emerged about what the likes of Mark Millar and Matthew Vaughn may do with the material, including working in some of the narrative presented in Millar’s new Hit-Girl comic, which follows Mindy the Merciless into high school. It’s said to involve projectile vomiting. I, for one, can’t wait.

3. The Art of the Title gets a redesign – One of my personal favorite websites — right up there with The Soundworks Collection — about the art that goes into film, has received a stunning new design. It’s from the folks at Cactuslab (who also worked on another personal favorite,Letterboxd) and it’s clean and elegant. If you have not visited, now would be the time.

4. Breaking Bad‘s Vince Gilligan wants a Mythbusters crossover – As part of their excellent Showrunner Survey series, Vulture caught up with the man behind the man who knocks, Vince Gilligan, to talk about how he’d love to see the guys from Mythbusters disprove some of the crazy stuff they’ve done on Breaking Bad. Most notably, I want to know if the explosive scene when Walt goes to get the money back from Tucco (in season one) is real.

5. What happens when a Pixar illustrator makes an R-rated movie kids book? – It sells out incredibly fast and makes me long for a copy of my own. That’s what happened with Josh Cooley’s “Movies R Fun.” See an example below:

6. Broken News – The New Yorker‘s Emily Nussbaum has written a harshly critical essay about Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom that makes me feel bad about how much I really enjoyed Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. Although she’s got a point about the fourth episode — that will be the point when viewers will either solidify their devotion or jump ship for good.

7. Why The Dark Knight Rises is basically a Rocky III remake – Brian Salisbury takes a one-off comment from Patton Oswalt and turns it into a solid discussion about the potential plot of The Dark Knight Rises. But it begs the question: isn’t everything just a remake of Rocky III?

8. Josh Olson will read your script – Remember that guy who wouldn’t read your f*&king script. Our own Cole Abaius called him an asshole. Then our own Cole Abaius came face-to-face with said asshole and determined that maybe he’s not such a bad guy. Now even Josh Olson is changing his mind. He will, in fact, read your goddamn motherfucking movie script if you give $5,000 to a Trailers from Hell Kickstarter campaign. If you want my advice, spend that $5,000 on things you need to actually make your movie.

9. How to Swing an Axe like Abraham Lincoln – Over at Popular Mechanics, the lovely Erin McCarthy explores the ways you too can chop a tree in half with one swing (the secret is truth, or fear, I still can’t tell). Now you can go out and finally chop down that cherry tree. Wait, wrong President…

10. Pop Pilgrims: The Griffith Observatory – The great series of travel videos from one of my favorite all-time websites (AV Club), sponsored by my own chosen brand of eyewear (Ray-Ban), features two of the web’s most astute gentleman scholars (James Rocchi and Nathan Rabin) as they talk about one of the great movies about the American teen (Rebel Without a Cause) and other great moments Hollywood has created at the Griffith Observatory. This is everything, all at once.