Hot Toys has just announced the Joker 2.0 sixth scale figure from The Dark Knight.  As you can see from the pictures, they’re done an incredible job and it’s eerie how much the sculpt looks like Heath Ledger.  Like all Hot Toys figures, the head sculpt is hand-painted and it’s got over 35 points of articulation.  It also comes with a ton of cool extras.  For more on the figure, you can pre-order it on Sideshow Collectables or hit the jump.

Gary Oldman wrapped up his 3-day, 7-film retrospective at New York’s Landmark Sunshine Cinema with a fun, extended Q&A after Wednesday night’s screening of his Oscar-nominated performance in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

The first time Academy Award nominee fielded questions from a theater filled with hundreds of his fans with nearly an hour.  Oldman also hung around for autographs, pictures and additional questions.  Hit the jump for stories from the set of The Dark Knight Rises, his paralyzing doubt on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and what he thought while watching Heath Ledger as The Joker.

Director Christopher Nolan says that he won’t bring back The Joker in Batman 3 or in any installment of the franchise while he’s in charge.  From the latest issue of Empire Magazine [via Obsessed with Film, emphasis theirs]:

“No”, says Nolan emphatically and unhesitatingly. He resists elaborating simply because, quite understandably, he says, “I just don’t feel comfortable talking about it”.

It’s good to know that Nolan is choosing not to make the crassest decision of all-time.  Besides, who could you recast?  Heath Ledger’s Joker is a singular performance, and while it can be impersonated (tip: always act like you’re really thirsty), it can never be replicated.  So let us simply resume speculation over who will be the villain of the next Batman movie. Batman 3 (tentative title) is slated to hit theaters on July 20, 2012.

A decade has passed since 10 Things I Hate About You first hit theaters, and Disney has released a 10^th anniversary DVD to commemorate the occasion.  Such teen comedies as She’s All That, Never Been Kissed, and American Pie all grossed more at the box office in 1999, but 10 Things has developed the more prestigious legacy over time (particularly after the descent of the American Pie franchise into direct-to-DVD mediocrity).  The film lives and dies on the shoulders of its teen cast, including notable turns by fresh faces Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Julia Stiles, and Larisa Oleynik. More after the jump.

With director Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus expanding into 500 additional theaters this Friday, it’s finally time to post my video interviews with Gilliam and Verne Troyer.  As most of you already know, the film is a fantastical tale set in the present day about a traveling carnival show where visitors pay to pass through a magical mirror and enter a world of their own imagination.  But Doctor Parnassus long ago made a bet with the devil, which is coming due.

While I wasn’t sure how Gilliam was going to pull off making this film come together after the death of Heath Ledger, not only does the film work, it’s Gilliam’s best work in years and you should really try and check it out.  Hit the jump for my interviews:

At first glance, the death of Heath Ledger combined with his posthumous Oscar® for The Dark Knight would seem to overshadow his final film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, an independent feature from a director whose last two films flopped both critically and commercially.  But in an unexpected triumph, director Terry Gilliam shows that his limitless imagination can keep the outside world behind the theater doors and invite audiences to step inside the world he depicts on the screen.

Finally opening on Christmas Day is director Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.   While I wasn’t sure how Gilliam was going to pull off making this film come together after the death of Heath Ledger during production, not only does the film work, it’s like he meant to do it all along.  In case you’re unaware, Gilliam had some of Ledger’s friends step in for him (Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell) when the characters go into some of the various worlds. For more on the film, I recommend checking out the clips and reading the synopsis and my thoughts here.

To help promote the film, I was able to speak with Lily Cole.  In the film, she plays the daughter of Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer).  During our interview we talked about working for Terry Gilliam, how grateful she is the film is finally getting released, going to college in Cambridge, what she has coming up, and a lot more.  Check it out after the jump.  And if the film is playing in your area this weekend, I definitely recommend checking it out.

The US Poster for Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus has finally arrived and it’s…not bad.  I guess when you see a movie with Imaginarium in the title, you expect it to be more imaginative, like this poster.  It’s no big deal but it does continue the campaign to make Heath Ledger the focal point of the film.  I don’t want to say it’s getting borderline-crass but it as at the point where I’m expecting the tagline “Heath Ledger’s Last Film Ever!”

Still, it’s better than the first poster for Broken Lizard’s upcoming film The Slammin’ Salmon.  Granted, there’s never been a spectacular poster for a Broken Lizard film.  In fact, they all seem to look like the same folks who design the covers of direct-to-video comedies.  BL’s movies certainly have broad humor but I feel like it’s the little jokes which make them work so well.  I also feel that a poster which highlighted a little joke but one no one would understand without seeing the film movie could be more effective.  I think the average moviegoer would be intrigued if they saw a poster with a naked Kevin Heffernan, his hands in front of his junk, covered in a white powder and then just the quote: “The lice hate the sugar.”  I’m afraid folks are going to see this poster and just write off the film.  That’s unfortunate because I think they have a unique brand of comedy that adds something to mainstream movies.  But hit the jump for both posters and perhaps you’ll like them more than I do.

I saw a screening of Heath Ledger’s final film, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”, the other day and am surprised to say….it completely works and the film was great.  Director Terry Gilliam has made his best work in years and even with other actors having to step in to help complete the movie, nothing felt forced and it’s like it was meant to be this way all along.

For those not familiar with the movie, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is Heath Ledger’s final performance as he died while filming.  After he died, production was halted as Gilliam tried to figure out how to salvage what he had.  To make it work he got  Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law to step in and play Heath Ledger’s character at different points in the movie. While you’re probably thinking there is no way this could work…I thought the same thing and I was 100% wrong.  Trust me, the film is a big surprise and it’s absolutely worth seeing. Anyway, while the film doesn’t get released till the end of December, we’ve been given seven clips from the movie and they’re after the jump. Take a look:

I’m at the point where I would like a trailer to tell people about “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” beyond “It looks pretty and it’s the last film Heath Ledger did.  He’s dead now, you know.”  I hate to be crass but it looks like Ledger is the star of the film but it looks like he’s in a supporting role to Parnassus.  Then again, he was technically in a supporting role to Batman in “The Dark Knight” and he ended up making the film, “The Joker with Special Guest-Batman”.

I’m still excited for the film but with all the blurbs at the end of the trailer, I’m surprised they just didn’t take one that said, “Heath Ledger’s Last Movie!”  Hit the jump to watch the trailer and see if you feel the same way.  “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” hits theaters on December 25^th.

Who would have thought that “Batman: Arkham Asylum, the latest Batman videogame in series which has fallen notoriously short on its trips to home consoles, would come up as one of the best-reviewed and best-selling games of 2009 when it made its next-gen debut on XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3?  Well, I did.  I watched all the trailers, knew that the story was by Paul Dini, that Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy were coming back as The Joker and Batman, respectively, and that this would be the first adaptation to actually take advantage of Batman’s abilities beyond his fighting skills and the darkness of the character’s attitude which sets him apart from all the other big-name superheroes.

“Batman: Arkham Asylum” is better than every Batman adaptation including “The Dark Knight”.  Hit the jump to find out why before your brain explodes.

“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” gained immediate notoriety upon Heath Ledger’s untimely death. Suddenly, the film was no longer a production followed only by Terry Gilliam’s loyal fans. It became the focus of many curious eyes, all wondering if Ledger’s film could ever come to fruition when he wasn’t able to complete it. While it’s easy to wonder what the film could have been without Ledger’s passing and the re-writes and cinematic magic required to complete it, it’s just as easy to appreciate what Gilliam made of it. Click through to jump into the Imaginarium…

As we know, when Heath Ledger died, Terry Gilliam chose to complete “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” using Jude Law, Colin Farrell, and Johnny Depp as different incarnations of Ledger’s role.  All three were close friends of the Ledger family, and the film will operate as a sort of tribute while fulfilling its purpose as commercial cinema.  One thing we didn’t know, and as Terry Gilliam recently revealed to Total Film magazine, was that Tom Cruise also lobbied heavily to step into the role as part of a return to relevance akin to his appearance in last summer’s “Tropic Thunder”.

Gilliam refused for one very simple reason: Tom Cruise had no personal connection to Heath Ledger.  More after the jump.

While no one knows when director Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is going to be released in the United States (most say Christmas Day), what is known is the film will be playing at next month’s Toronto Film Festival. And whenever a film plays at a festival, the studio/distributor/filmmaker releases new movie images. So after the jump, take a look at a few new images from Heath Ledger’s last film.

And here I thought thought that buying Heath Ledger’s last film would be a no brainer.  After nearly seven months on the market it looks like Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” has finally found a suitor in Sony.  According to Variety the studio is in “advanced” talks to acquire the film for US distribution.  An official announcement, including release date information, is expected later this week so if that happens we will let you know.