The schedule for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival has been announced and the American representation is at it’s lightest since 2006. Of the notable films on this years schedule: Quentin Tarantino will be screening his Inglorious Basterds, Sam Raimi will be screening his finished print of Drag Me To Hell, Ang Lee brings Talking Woodstock with Emile Hersch, Liev Schreiber, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan to France, and Terry Gilliam will bring the real last Heath Ledger film, Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. And, of course, UP’s historic opening spot.

But what does the WGA have to do with this craziness…

From Variety:

Confirming prognostications, Cannes Official Selection looks relatively light on U.S. fare this year. At a packed press conference in Paris’ Grand Hotel, fest program director Thierry Fremaux, flanked by Cannes president Gilles Jacob, told journos Thursday that Hollywood WGA strike could have been responsible for the lighter U.S. presence.

So what can we blame the WGA for, really? This year’s summer movie season? It looks like Wolverine, T4 and Star Trek might save us from what could have been a schlock-filled, half-written summer.

However, now we’re supposed to turn our focus to the smaller indie and auteur films which were in production during the horrid strike.

I love writers and all, but the film industry has been doing a pretty good job of mumbling: “well, with the writer’s strike” whenever something comes up light or underwhelming.

At least we should only have one year where that’s the excuse.

Check out the rest of the Cannes Schedule HERE.

That’s the view into Heath Ledgers NYC apartment this morning. Empty.

A year ago today, we were all locked to our computers, collecting news about the sudden death of Heath Ledger and - it seems odd now - debating if The Dark Knight was done at all.

The man died one year to the day before getting a posthumous Oscar nomination.

Due to that, the massive success of The Dark Knight and still upcoming The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, Heath’s special category remains open for a bit longer.

It seems like last year, Johnny Depp was bounced around to a few unexpected projects. He spent some time filming Public Enemies (which we saw HERE), then jetted off to replace Heath Ledger, along with Jude Law and Golden Globe winner Colin Farrell in Terry Gillaim’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It seems like we heard that Tim Burton was going to be filming Alice In Wonderland for Disney mere weeks before he was actually filming it and Depp was on hand as The Mad Hatter (maybe first seen HERE).

That’s a lot of work, back and forth, from a guy who was exclusively Captain Jack Sparrow for a few years there.

Now, we’ve got a casting announcement that suggests Depp’s next project will be The Rum Diary, which would see him reprise his role from Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and bring Hunter S. Thompson to screen once more…

The casting call is for Chenault, the love interest in The Rum Diary, who - from the casting info - seems to just be walking sex:

THE RUM DIARY (One Role) Feature Film
PRODUCTION COMPANIES: GK FILMS & INFINITUM NIHIL
UNION: SAG
Writer/Director: Bruce Robinson Based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson
Casting Director: Denise Chamian
Casting Associate: Angela Demo
NY Casting Associate: Julie Schubert
Sounds steamy….

Casting Assistant: Krysti Charron

Start Date: March 2009

SUBMIT JULIE SCHUBERT TEL: XXX-XXX-XXXX

[PAUL KEMP] -Johnny Depp

SEEKING: [CHENAULT] A beautiful, 25 year old, translucent vision from Connecticut, with a killer smile and a wry, enigmatic personality, she wears barely-there sarongs, sunbathes nude, and oozes sexuality in everything she does. She enchants and mesmerizes Kemp from the moment they meet: while both escaping a tedious, high-end party. Chenault is dating and possibly engaged to Sanderson, but clearly feels an attraction to Kemp. She’s a daredevil who loves to dance and drive fast. She gets into big trouble with a lust-crazed, violent crowd during Carnival in St. Thomas. .. LEAD. This role contains nudity.

STORY LINE: 1960: Divorced alcoholic and struggling novelist PAUL KEMP decides to kick around San Juan until his ship comes in, working as a journalist for a daily newspaper that’s on its last legs, drinking gallons of rum and experimenting with LSD. With his new friend BOB SALA by his side, he becomes entangled in a corrupt hotel development scheme with a slick PR consultant named SANDERSON, and falls in love with Sanderson’s unattainable girlfriend, CHENAULT. . .

Paul Kemp is one of the alter egos of 22-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, and the one that Johnny Depp will be inhabiting for the film (Johnny Depp as 22? We’ll worry about that later).

Word on the production street is that Krysti Charron, the casting assistant is partial to Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johannson, but readings for this role will probably include a swath of relatively unknowns.

No one has yet been cast, but when they are, expect The Rum Diary to start spinning it’s wheels.

Eeeehh. If Warner Bros initially spoke about removing the scene in The Dark Knight where the Joker pretends to be dead in a bodybag, then - from the looks of these stills - whomever picks up Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is going to have a little dilemma on their hands.

It will probably help that when Ledger died half-way through filming his part, Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell stepped in to take over his role. This is supposed to be a fantasy-filled film, so it’s very possible the three A-listers pulled it off. But…geez. There the guy is, strung up on a noose.

These photos have been blown up a bit, but they aren’t the only stills that have leaked onto the net recently…

CLICK HERE for the rest of the stills from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Matilda, the daughter of Michelle Williams and Heath Ledger will be the beneficiary of the salaries garnered by Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, the three actors who took Heath’s place in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. It was the last role Ledger filmed before his untimely death.

The actor’s estate had not been updated since the birth of his daughter, which has lead to small tabloid rumors and hearsay about the Ledger family trying to get money to Michelle and Matilda.

Although this item appears in Hello Magazine (not the most reliable of sources), they have a Terry Gilliam quote confirming it: “They didn’t take money - it goes to Heath’s daughter. That’s extraordinary. And wonderful and when you’re part of that, you think, ‘Ah, this is maybe why I went into the movies in the beginning’.”

Also, we’d just like to think that those three actors are as nice as we want them to be. Sometimes, when you’re always looking for The Bad and Ugly, something good can surprise you.

This week, we can’t go anywhere without hearing about the millions of dollars The Dark Knight is going to pull into theaters for Warner Bros this weekend (sorry, Mama Mia). Man, woman, child: they all want the bat. Or that’s what it seems like.

As a continuation of our Dark Knight Primer, we’ve collected links, miscellaneous thoughts, news and rumor just in case you aren’t all Batmaned out.

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Primer time!Dave here, ready to wade through the Dark Knight content for your benefit.

Previously, On Film…

Thank God for Nolan’s relaunch of Batman. Seriously.

I’m a fan of Tim Burton’s Batman as well, he brought the sort of seriousness to Batman that the character requires. The darkness and torment were a given, but I liked the way Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale kind of hooked up, then she got tossed away for Catwoman, who got tossed away. The angle that Bruce Wayne isn’t just a player but a player who recklessly falls in love with the dark part of people was a really great decision that stands out for me in the Burtons.

Then, there was Batman Forever. Oh, what to ever say about Batman Forever?

First, I guess: I like Batman Forever. That said, there were lots of horrible things about it. Even the title: Batman Forever. Forever what? Does it mean, like, Bruce Wayne realizes he’ll be Batman Forever or is it just one of those things you add on to a trade paperback like “The Bad And Ugly: Nexus.”

The decision to make the world of Batman neon colored is one I still grapple with. Stylistically, I can see where that was going, and a lot of The Riddler’s design (the stuff he uses, not the horrible unisex pink haircut) really benefited from it. However, all my noble gas patience for the style was sucked dry by the Black Light Gang. I mean, what kind of self-respecting roving karate gang puts black-light paint on their face and dresses in pinks and greens to go rape some girls in old town? And who is installing all these black lights in the alleyways of the slums? The city?

Oh, and I have no patience for Val Kilmer. If you think he’s still 50 miles from crazy, read the essay about him in Chuck Klosterman IV and you’ll realize he’s passed the city limits.

The one thing I’ll say about Batman and Robin is that I’m entertained to this day thinking about George Clooney waking up at 5 in the morning to get squeezed into that rubber suit, getting to his trailer and seeing that his first setup is a one-shot of him saying the line: “Hi Freeze, I’m Batman.” to Governor Arnold. Puts a smile on my face just writing about it now. Especially with George Clooney’s sudden but deftly executed PR shift to Serious Actor/Respected Filmmaker/Sexiest Man Alive.

Then, Christopher Nolan looks at the tattered remains of the franchise and said what everyone had been thinking since Batman started to spiral out of control with Danny DiVito in Batman Returns: “Why is everyone treating this like a joke?” Everyone.

Burton’s extreme style in Returns marked the run of three Batman movies that were more about Directors going Batshit (*rimshot*) Crazy about blowing out all the subtleties of the style, villains and characters.

Things in Batman Begins like Bruce Wayne and Alfred moving money through Wayne Industries to buy pieces of the Bat Armor in bulk from different companies so no one can trace it is not only great makings for a run on sentence, but also a great, full story.

I’m leaving out Batman: The Movie, not because I forgot about it or don’t love it, but because it was never meant to be a Batman Movie as much as it was meant to be a TV Show turned Movie featuring Adam West and goofy comedy.

If my thoughts aren’t factual enough for you, or if you missed one of the above Batman Films, I’d suggest Film School Rejects’ article Batman on Screen: A History of Batman in Movies.

Saw You In The Funny Pages: What Was Pulled From The Comics?

Batman in the comics has always been a changing character, but he does the best when he is brooding or forced to lose a part of his humanity in the battle against evil. This has always been summed up perfectly in the ongoing conflict between The Joker and Batman.

Strangely, it was Alan Moore (Watchmen, V For Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentleman, the only worth-while Swamp Thing) who stumbled succinctly upon this dichotomous relationship in 1988’s The Killing Joke, which has become the most talked about Joker/Batman story both for presenting the argument that – eventually – one of these masked super-beings is going to kill the other and for presenting “the Joker’s origin,” which has never been canonized in the DC Universe.

Though The Killing Joke seems to present the Joker’s transformation as one rooted in tragedy, multiple origins have made it onto the screen. In The Dark Knight, the Joker’s true origin is never revealed, and in that sense, The Killing Joke is notable only for it’s accurate portrayal of the relationship between Bats and his #1 nemesis.

If Harvey Dent is more your bag, then The Dark Knight will thrill you as it is obviously a story of Dent’s fall from grace and transformation into Two-Face.

Two-Face has been dealt with in multiple fashions as well, lest we forget the part Tommy Lee Jones decided to play because his children told him to. As far as The Dark Knight is concerned, the best comic reference to the story you will see unfold on the screen is Jeph Loeb’s The Long Halloween.

This story is quoted by David S. Goyer writer of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight as being an inspiration to the films. The issue in The Long Halloween where the Roman Empire is in so much damage that Falcone has to get help from the “freaks”, in this case The Riddler, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow and The Mad Hatter is a theme played into the Joker in The Dark Knight. The characterization of Harvey Dent is very similar to that in The Long Halloween. Worth noting also, is the marketing campaign during Halloween 2007, in which one of the related websites had a pumpkin which over time began to resemble the cover of issue #13 of the story.

If you still need more Batman, First Showing has an article titled Suggested Reading: The Dark Knight - From Batman to Joker that is tops!

Viral Marketing 
The Dark Knight has been very good at NOT existing in a bubble. Not only did Warners pony up the cash for one of the largest Viral Marketing Alternate Reality Games ever, but they put their trust in 42 Productions and produced some landmark content. A few days ago, I poured through the entire game and its material for hours to bring you the FULL STORY of the ARG.If you want to check some more of the marketing fantastic-ness out, The Dark Knight ARG Wiki has links to the downloadable media files, pictures of the various websites and their purpose, an event time line and a complete viral character listing. It’s quite impressive, and I wish I had found it before going through the entirety of the Superhero Hype Message boards.Also, the viral flagship site, WhySoSerious.com has a full list of all the fan-participatory events in the viral game (barring the Harvey Dent Campaign Bus):Why So Serious Viral

5/18/07 – Participate in local election, but make it all about me.

7/27/07 – Recruit henchmen, sacrifice one to fake own death

11/01/07 – Make everyone everywhere look like me

11/23/07 – Filter out the sane ones

11/30/07 – Give select goons secure phones (inside cakes? Poisoned cakes?)

12/14/07 – Cultivate a taste for the theatrical

04/01/08 – Send Cops down wrong lane

04/29/08 – Make fun of “the Batman”

06/16/08 - Reveal ugly face of Gotham Justice

06/19/08 – Hit em where it hurts

06/25/08 – Get ready to really blow up

07/01/08 – Be good to my guests

07/07/08 – Gather all my fans

07/09/08 – Leave big mark

The website has a clutter of one object from each of the above linked events. Click around and see some of the web-games others have been playing for over a year.

This marketing campaign is groundbreaking and if (when) The Dark Knight becomes the highest-grossing Batman movie ever, you’d better believe that 42 is going to get a little attention. It’s still to early to tell what magical combination made The Dark Knight so visible for all audiences. A star who dies after filming + over a year of anticipation + an actually good film = more viral marketing for films in the future.

Heath Ledger

From his action figure selling out despite looking nothing like him to the marketing panic Warner Bros went through shortly after his death, Heath Ledger has been the selling point of The Dark Knight for a long time now.

Thank God everyone is saying he gave a fantastic performance as the Joker [Staff: we have our opinion, but our review will be this weekend], regardless if the buzz that Heath is going to receive an Oscar nod is real or just really good PR.

What we do know is that you can review everything Heath Ledger related by clicking on our Heath Ledger category, which looks like it won’t close until the Oscars of March next year.

IMAX

Since it was revealed that Christopher Nolan shot some scenes for The Dark Knight in IMAX, the largest film format currently in existence, rumors have flown about how much or how little was actually in the cut, if it was required watching to plunk down a few extra Lincolns on an IMAX viewing.

We’re going to say that you should check out The Dark Knight in IMAX. Even if it is only 6 action sequences and slightly over 20 minutes of a 2-and-a-half hour film, this film is doing more for the format than any other commercial film before it.

Not to mention that you will never have a Blu-Ray player and TV big enough to replicate what you are going to see on the screen nevertheless recreate the nausea that rises in you when you take your first dive with Batman in IMAX.

Predictably, /Film is a huge proponent of The Dark Knight in IMAX and their article titled How The Dark Knight Went IMAX is the coolest and most informative.

IN CLOSING: I’m stuck in Colorado for the wedding of two of my High School friends, so I’ll be missing out on the New York midnight premiere of crazies. But, you best believe I have my Dark Knight shirt all washed, my eyes open and my Joker card on my person. Because I can see this film multiple times, but nothing is going to compare to the rush of watching it with BatFans in a packed theater.

If the above wasn’t anything new to you, and you want some advanced preparation, start watching Michael Mann’s Heat now and maybe you’ll finish it before midnight.

You’ll notice how it’s relevant.

Where the hell is The Dark Knight screening and where are the other people that must have seen this movie? Everything we hear continues to be great, and we’re not that far off from hoping that each month of the summer movie rush is going to result in “the best reviewed movie of the summer.”

Iron Man pulled in awesome reviews for May, which Wall-E just topped for June and The Dark Knight looming in July.

Rolling Stone reviews:

The Joker represents the last completed role for Ledger, who died in January at 28 before finishing work on Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It’s typical of Ledger’s total commitment to films as diverse as Brokeback Mountain and I’m Not There that he does nothing out of vanity or the need to be liked. If there’s a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976’s Network, sign me up. Ledger’s Joker has no gray areas — he’s all rampaging id. Watch him crash a party and circle Rachel, a woman torn between Bale’s Bruce (she knows he’s Batman) and Eckhart’s DA, another lover she has to share with his civic duty. “Hello, beautiful,” says the Joker, sniffing Rachel like a feral beast. He’s right when he compares himself to a dog chasing a car: The chase is all. The Joker’s sadism is limitless, and the masochistic delight he takes in being punched and bloodied to a pulp would shame the Marquis de Sade. “I choose chaos,” says the Joker, and those words sum up what’s at stake in The Dark Knight.

Take in the rest of the 3.5/4 star review HERE, and prepare for some minor plot points we’ve only had hinted at before.