(I'm going to try and get through this review without spoilers.)

First off, the gadgets. The Batmobile is back, and so is Batman's upgraded fighting suit. He's not residing in Wayne Manor anymore after the events of the Batman Begins, so he has to make do with hiding his Bat-gear inside Wayne Towers and various locales around the city. Batman makes do. He's a hero in exile, a thread that continues through to the end of the movie and on to the next.

There's a very good minor plot device that centers around cellphones that would be pretty damn awesome if it we could get our hands on it in real life. Who knows...maybe the government's already using it now. Plus there's are great scenes in the air, both with a plane and "without". He's really earning that "Bat" part of his name.

As good as Christian Bale is as Bats, the real stars of THIS movie are the Joker and Harvey Dent. If there is ever a character that is the complete opposite of the Dark Detective—cold, calculating, and completely logical—it's the Joker. He's simultaneously insane and extremely insane, taking apart bit by bit the fragile peace that Batman has strived to build since the first movie. There is so little logic to the joker that he's probably the one person whose moves Batman can't predict.

What's great about this movie isn't just the writing and the special effects (though they both are still stellar), it's that everything FEELS exactly like you'd imagine Batman and his villains to be in real life. There's even traces of realistic crime flicks like Heat going on throughout, which lends more to making guys as ludicrous on paper as Batman and the Joker believable. How would you portray a man whose sole intent, as Alfred says, is to watch the world burn? This is how. Gone is affable clownish uncle figure that Jack Nicholson played in the 1989 Batman, and in his place is a character that if you saw on the street, you should run away from as fast as you fucking can. Us gadget fans relate more towards with Batman's logic than Joker's lunacy, which is why he's going to be the best villain you'll ever seen in a superhero flick.

See this movie. Go buy this ticket right now and print it out at your office. We didn't get to see it in IMAX, but a good 20 minutes of the film was shot in the format, so we're definitely going to go back and catch it again. In fact, we've been trying to wrap our heads around all the different themes and nuances that Chris Nolan crammed in; ideas that are even more subtle than they were in the first. A second viewing would do us good.

(You'll notice we didn't mention much about Harvey Dent/Two Face in this review. We'll leave that bit of plot for you to discover yourselves.)

Tan says he found his inspiration from old Disneyland attraction posters – something the Pixar guys are allegedly obsessed with. To differentiate the new Wall-E prints from his last line of The Incredibles art, Tan decided to go for a 1950s advertisement twist. Get your own at Acme Direct or, if you'd rather risk jail than spend $165, steal them from the walls of the main lobby of Pixar Animation Studios. [Slashfilm]

[Moviebox]

A movie based on Nolan Bushnell's founding of Atari was sold to Paramount on Friday and Leonardo Dicaprio is set to play the lead. Most people remember Bushnell for Atari, but I remember him for the scathing pit of rancid pizza and yuppie spawn called Chuck E. Cheese.

When the local mall's Gap wouldn't take me as a sales associate, I got a job at Chuck E. Cheese for $4 an hour stamping a greasy matching digit on the forearms of children and parents alike as a kidnapping security measure. (No one got outside with a kid without the same digits on their paws.) You'd be surprised that the kids weren't scared of a 6-foot rat but thought the rubber stamp was a tazer. Later, the managers realized I would be much more acquiescent to tasks like answering phones and sweeping up than the kids from the wrong side of the tracks in Hackensack, so I got those jobs, too, while everyone else got to sneak in games of Outrun. It was then that I decided I should go to college. By the way, I worked 10 hours shifts and the music soundtrack to the place was 20 minutes long on infinite repeat. [Hollywood Reporter]

We had a chance to ask director/writer/editor Kobi Shely about his first movie. And he had some interesting things to say about Apple and the people who really, really love them.

Tell me about shooting the documentary.
MacHEADS was produced throughout 2007 and 2008; First day of shooting started with Macworld conference in January 2007 and ended in June with the first release of the iPhone. Brothers Ron and Kobi Shely, and Director of Photography Alon Grego flew from Israel to San Francisco and met up with a local production teams. The budget came independently we managed to come up with approx $200,000.

How many people did you chronicle?
We interviewed 50 people form the community and inside Apple, but naturally not all of them were included in the final cut.

Can you define "Machead" in one sentence?
(Obviously you take more time to do it in the film.)
MacHEADS starts with a definition from the Urban dictionary - a person who regularly uses and is somewhat obsessed with Apple computers; or Macs. I would add to this A person who had put the Mac (including: UI, OS, APPLE Inc. , Steve Jobs and peripheral Mac products) in the center of his day-to-day life.

Why did you pick Mac enthusiasts as the topic for a documentary?
I think Mac enthusiasts are the best topic for a documentary as an art form the investigate human phenomenon. In fact, before starting the project I was surprised to find out that this film was not done yet. Mac enthusiasts posses all the right ingredients and traits for a compelling documentary: lust,obsession, devotion, comradery and ... sex appeal

Did making this film provide any particular insights to why/how people are obsessed with the Apple brand?
We wanted to answer the core question : How is a community formed around a brand and how did this phenomenon begin? I wasn't satisfied with the usual answers about design and the "power of the brand". I knew there was something bigger. During the filmmaking process it became obvious that there is a community and there is Apple. Although they correlate, in many ways they are separated.

In the early days the only people who were using personal computers were hobbies and scientists. Apple was the first company to actually build a prepackaged product for the rest of us. This sparked a sense of techno- utopia, different people were getting together to change the world through technology by using a Mac. And as often in these world-changing situations these people were the underdog, the minority. They had to band together to survive, their survival mechanism was similar to those penguins who hold together and got to press tightly together and exclude all outsiders to share what ever body warmth they can manage.

This is why this community is so obsessed with Mac because it managed to tap into their survival mechanism. However there is an expanding base of Mac fans who simply follow Apple because it is cool and fashionable, these are not the die hard obsessed MacHEADS.

Is Mac obsession any different from obsession with any other hobby, person or company?
I'd have to say that there is no question that it is an obsession not like any other. In the 90s crisis Mac users went out of their ways volunteering to save the company from going down, how many brands can claim that? and it wasn't just a one time thing it was through a period of almost 3 years. This kind of loyalty in my opinion brands can only dream of. What is interesting to me is that Apple never figured out how to manage their die hard fans, in some way the Macintosh community scares Apple. And now that Apple has become an overwhelming success they want to move away as far as they can from their most loyal and create a clean image of a life style brand.

Walk me through the process of post production.
Post production took us almost 8 months to complete. We are a small production company and when I say small I really mean me and my brother and MacHEADS is our first documentary project. There are benefits of being fully independent but there are also downsides of not having a team of specializing people in the process of post. We had to rely on ourselves to figure out ways to research archives go through legal issues compose the story score the music, animate and color correct the footage...I edited at my apartment on Avid Xpress Pro (using of course a G5), the online was done on Symphony, music composed in L.A by our talented friend and composer Roy Zu Arets, and sound design was executed by Ohad Tzachar who worked in N.Y for a leading broadcast company. A lot of people we worked with were in some ways Apple fans because they come from creative fields and they were very kin to get on board and help.

What's the future for MacHEADS: The Movie?
During the filmmaking process we came to realize the promise of web 2.0 and community driven distribution. Although we are negotiating with some distributors about Television deals, we believe such a film could become a good proof for the digital independent distribution potential. MacHEADS is in general a film about the community and for the community and this is why it is best fit for web 2.0 distribution. Also we hope to be able to get onto iTunes which is also a natural platform for such a movie. Now that we are done with the post production we are planning a few special screenings in San Fransisco and NY. We will naturally be going on festival circuit tour all across the world.

So are you a Machead?
No, but like most creative we use and love Apple products. [MacHEADS]

Zlotoff mentioned he somehow ended up with the movie rights years ago (extremely uncommon), giving him full control over the film. While few specifics were mentioned, and no formal announcement has been made, its extremely promising that the man with the power to make the film is getting the ball rolling. The question is...do you bring back Richard Dean Anderson as old MacGyver, or bring in a younger, Christian Bale-type to reprise the role of makeshift gadget god? [Maker Faire on Giz]

UPDATE: We asked Zlotoff if a Swiss Army Knife is still good enough for MacGyver today, check out his answer here.

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The studios thought to have signed on Apple's dotted line include Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate and New Line—all of whom have a rental deal with iTunes. Smaller houses, such as Magnolia and Image Entertainment are included, but MGM is out of the picture.

Most at risk from the news is, undoubtedly, Wal-Mart. Apple has already usurped the retail giant this year as the number one seller of music. Amazon and Microsoft, with their respective operations, Unbox and XBox Live Marketplace, are also expected to be affected. [Yahoo!]

I must admit that I really dig how the film will tap the common man for content—and I'm sure that there is a lot of raw talent out there that will finally be discovered as a result. On the other hand, it could be the most unwatchable movie in history. Still, if you want to try your luck—text, music, video and photo submissions are being accepted between now and August 21st. Nokia will choose 25 submissions at which point website visitors will whittle the candidates down to 10. Spike will personally choose the winners from each act. Hit the link for more details. [Nokia Productions via Reuters]

Steampunkish? You bet. Still, I bet he can kick Hulk's ass. At least for two minutes. Iron Monger, un cappuccino, prego? [io9 and Toysrevil]

Releasing a statement about a survey? Sounds like someone's trying to jockey a better negotiating position while talks are still underway. On a similar note, Netflix's online site seems to have been down for most of Monday, which makes the case for streaming media even stronger. [Reuters - Thanks David!]

A few weeks back, I wrote up a piece on Vudu's high-definition video falling short of my expectations. Today I bring you a more thorough report of the three most compelling set-top boxes and their video-download capabilities. Apple TV, Vudu and Xbox 360 all have a lot going for them, but by looking at them side-by-side, you can see how their makers are all taking different paths to get to the ultimate desired end. Dive into the chart, then have a look at the screengrabs from three movies, to really get a feel for the progress, or lack of progress, in the world of HD downloads.

Just so you know, in addition to skipping everything that requires an actual PC (including HP's MediaSmart receivers), I omitted TiVo from the running for now, for two reasons: 1) the Amazon Unbox on TiVo doesn't yet offer HD movie downloads; and 2) TiVo itself is a subscription service, whereas these systems don't charge a monthly fee for the privilege of renting movies.You can see how frustrating it is to pick a winner when you look at the three systems on paper. Fortunately, things clear up a bit when you compare stills I shot at the same time, on the same Panasonic 1080p plasma TV.

Screens from Ratatouille—note that the Vudu shot is standard-definition only:
Screens from 3:10 to Yuma—note that the Apple TV shot is standard-definition only:
Screens from Transformers—here the three devices are all running high-def versions, and I've mixed in a screen from the HD DVD of it as well, for surprising comparison.
Keep in mind that the key here is to compare the shots with each other, as they were all shot the same way. (Note that the same perceived down-rezzing issue I noted before on Vudu's high-def is still obvious.)

Now that you've seen all the evidence I could gather. It's a toss-up to me, though I think for content I have to lean towards Vudu and for pure video quality (and most HD content) the Xbox 360 is hard to beat. Meanwhile, Apple TV is cheapest and lives up to its name with the best access to actual TV programming—though NBC is still painfully absent. How about helping me make the call here?

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iTunes Movie Rentals launches today and will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV.

All in all, that's 601 movies short of their 1,000 title promise. As for "100 titles in stunning HD," Apple fell short here as well, but they at least came close offering 91 films that meet the standard (however, many of those films are not actually in 5.1 surround).

And when counting all the movies you can watch from iTunes—including both rentals and purchases—Macworld found that Apple is still short of any 1,000 movie goal, offering only 770 films total.

Hopefully, Apple will meet their 1,000 rental goal in March. Because while AppleTV's recent makeover was impressive, we'd like to be able to, you know, watch some movies on it or something. [macworld]

Tony Stark (to army driver): "Good God, you are a woman."

Tony Stark: "Yeah. I can fly."

Computer: "Sir, the upgrade is complete" (talking about the new armor) Tony Stark: "Tell you what. Put a little hot rod red in there."

Tony Stark (to Virginia Potts, while fitting his armor): "Let's face it, this is not the worst thing you caught me doing."

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JasonPoll concept courtesy of Jason Chen (who is a Batman fan; nobody is perfect.) [IGN]

1. Lightsaber (Star Wars)

2. .44 Magnum (Dirty Harry)

3. Bullwhip (Indiana Jones)

4. Samurai sword (Kill Bill)

5. Chainsaw (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)

6. Golden Gun (James Bond - The Man With The Golden Gun)

7. Bow and arrow (Robin Hood)

8. Machine gun (Scarface)

9. The Death Star (Star Wars)

10. Bowler hat (James Bond - Goldfinger)

[Telegraph via Neatorama via Geeklikeme]

Yesterday we rented 300 and started playing it only 5MB into the download—it was fast and smooth. Very nice. But now I've only got 9 hours left to experience the magic. With time running out, I closed iTunes, set my clock back and restarted the program to see if it does bestow a Lazarus effect. Sure enough, it did. I even got a little mad with power here, turning the clock back to 2003 to see just how potent this elixir is. iTunes yelled at me:
But when it started back up, check it out: That's right. iTunes knows I was playing God and messing with time on a massive scale. But I got three years to watch my movie anyway! Unfortunately, this trick does not work to revive already dead flicks—once they expire, they're automatically dumped. I know, because I launched my computer forward in time by a day and got this:
So, this is a great way to extend the life of movie rentals by a couple of hours if you're running late on finishing it, but it's not really a practical way to steal movies, since your would have to live in the past every time you fired up iTunes.

Another idea was to set the computer's time up before we rented, thinking you could then set it back to normal and have as much time as you wanted. Being adventurous, we tried to set the clock ahead 50 years. The homemade XP Pro computer we used in testing wasn't built for serious time travel, however. The 50-year shift made everything go kablooey. So we tried the more modest jump of one year. It worked.

Giz-Certified Best Method
Take your system into the future (but not too far) before you click play for the first time, which starts the 24-hour clock. Start the movie. Then exit iTunes and return to the present. We did this with the second movie we rented, playing it for the first time in 2009. We came back to 2008, and now we have a whole year to watch it. This method obviously doesn't require as much careful time-shifting back and forth to extend your movies' life span as it does if you start playing around after you've started the 24-hour countdown. Mac Test
We figured it would work on a Mac, but wanted to be absolutely sure, so Benny Boo gladly dropped $4 (which we may or may not reimburse) to test it on his MacBook. As you can see, it works: The bad news is that it doesn't seem to work with iPod/iPhone, however. Benny's year-long rental is apparently too much of a time paradox for the iPhone to swallow, so it kept spitting it back up despite a restart and repeated attempts: If you've gotten it to work on your portable, let us know in the comments.

With automatic system-time updates, there's a chance any time you set will be corrected. In that case, you'd wake up to a long list of expired flicks. Frankly, don't count on this hack working for too long anyway since Hollywood is uberprotective of its content and someone's bound to lock this hole down tight within days. We don't know of a similar trick for Movielink or CinemaNow rentals—maybe you do—but our guess is that it's not doable.

Alright so it appears to no longer work. Here's what happened on our end. Before, we had set our computer date to 2009, and started playing Ratatouille (and Benny started playing The Simpsons) to start the 24-hour timer in 2009. Came back to 2008, everything was gravy. We go to play it again just a few minutes ago, and it tries to connect to iTunes, and then gives us a 5103 error. Benny gets the same deal.

So we delete the busted file and try a fresh download, this time with our computer dated to Jan. 24, a mere week ahead. Download starts, we click play and get the 5103 error—we couldn't even get it start in the future, which was the basis of the original trick. Adrian tried to extend a movie he rented last night by throwing his computer back a week. 5103 error, though coming back to the present he got it to play. We figured it wouldn't last forever.

We're still playing with it, so we'll let you know what other tricks we come up with as we confirm them. For now, feel free to go and play Jobs with time for yourself, and by all means report back. [Apple iTunes]

Also interesting is the pricing scheme that Apple's unleashing. Movie rentals will be somewhere between $2 and $5, depending on the newness and goodness of the movie (they decide, not you) and will only be valid for 24 hours. That's it? Even Blockbuster lets you keep a movie for two days before slipping into their "no late fees late fees" period. And, to top it off, they've got movies from Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. as well. [Variety via Valleywag]

Besides basically handing the online rental space over to Netflix, it leaves it the sole powerhouse movie rental company to remain profitable—Movie Gallery, the no. 2 B&M chain, is bankrupt—and therefore the undisputed heavyweight champion of the rental world. Make no mistake about it, folks, things are looking grim for the corner rental store.

It's not like Blockbuster was totally unaware of this. Moving into new distribution channels is increasingly looking like the only way to survive the video wars—hopefully Netflix doesn't stop following through on their bolder, more intuitive ideas, lest we write about it sinking with the physical media rental market altogether in several years. [Forbes via Consumerist, Flickr]

One such message reads; "MZCancellationReason.DidNotReceive-RentalMovie." A plethora of other messages also make reference to some form of a movie rental service. The list of messages can be seen above. As yet, we are unable to confirm the list; drop your findings below if you can substantiate the claim. Given this is not the first time we have been here, if true, it could be possible that this is merely a remnant of Apple's earlier, beleaguered ambitions. [Flickr].

Rip-Off Of Given the kiddie target audience, the first connection I made was with that great The Muppet Movie scene in which Animal fries everyone ears with his roaring sound check. (Okay, that's partially an excuse just to link to this Dr. Teeth vid.) But the ad-world granddad of these sorts of spots has to be the classic Memorex commercials, in which a wall of sound blows a yuppie's martini right into his waiting hand.

The Spin Those of y'all with massive subwoofers, or at least a passing familiarity with the THX sound tests of yore, know the deal: Dolby Digital bestows a fat, loud bottom end to any cinematic soundtrack. Yes, even the beating of tiny bee's wings sounds awesome in Dolby Digital, which gives you every reason to look for the brand name when you shop for your next HD DVD and/or Blu-ray player. (It's usually emblazoned on the upper right corner of the faceplate, Joe Q. Public.) Because that's what this promo is really about—getting the next generation of consumers accustomed to the concept of Dolby technologies being the be-all and end-all of audio perfection. As they say in the ad biz, if you win a customer's loyalty before the age of 16, you've got 'em for hooked life.

Counterspin It's no accident, though, that Dolby's latching its brand-building promo to a movie with obvious cross-cultural appeal. Judging by the transcript of Dolby Labs' Q3 conference call, the moneymen are wondering how the company will ensure that the digital cinemas of the developing world—especially those in India and China—come to rely on Dolby 3D, which is ostensibly the company's future cash cow. Despite its apparent digi-audio hegemony, Dolby is actually at something of a crossroads—a few years hence, digital projection will be the rule in cinemas worldwide, and the company wants to make sure it's got a jump on selling to vendors who'll be making the transition from celluloid. Never mind that the real money is to be made in the home market—theaters continue to be the glamour realm, so that's where Dolby has to ensure that its brand remains strong.

Takeaway Love him or hate him, John C. Dvorak recently made a sharp observation regarding Dolby Labs: on your first Walkman, the noise reduction technology was pointedly called Dolby noise reduction. Yes, the company that Ray Dolby built has been aggressively branding itself for decades now, for the express purpose of making sure that consumers look for the Dolby name when purchasing third-party audio equipment (and thus ensuring that licensing fees remain fat). That seems to be the real money-maker for that company, as opposed to licensing for professional cinema. But just as kids are more likely to purchase a sneaker if it's endorsed by Michael VickGilbert Arenas, consumers are more likely to buy an HD DVD that prominently boasts a technology trumpeted at the local megaplex. This may seem like a trifling point nowadays, given that no one in their right mind would buy a player that can't support the AC-3 codec. But, hey, it's never too early to start worrying about 2018, right?

Hype-O-Meter 7 (out of 10). Dolby's on a roll, and this is a surefire brand builder in the U.S. But will cinemas in the developing world really pay for Dolby 3D, or are the Lords of Guangdong already developing lower-cost alternatives for digital cinema? Branding works best, after all, when the margins between the "real deal" and the knock-off are pretty thin. Make that margin too wide, and cinema operators in Golmud won't become devoted customers.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Hype Sheet column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

Read more Hype Sheet

In Tiger, Mac OS X's previous version, the central theme was its most touted feature: Spotlight. The movie then showed a beam of light picking out the word Welcome in different languages. Here, the Welcomes appear scattered as the camera travels through space.

It may not be authentic, but given the production quality and Time Machine theme, our gut feeling is that this is the Real Thing . [9Rules via New Launches]

The good news is that Blockbuster has decided not to raise prices for its existing customers. Our tipster was understandably relieved to see that his plan won't be affected by these changes. The tipster's two-DVDs-at-a-time unlimited plan (as long as exchanges are made in the store) runs $14.99 a month, but he's telling us Blockbuster will be charging $21.99 for that same unlimited plan for new subscribers after August 31.

Blockbuster decided to make those changes a few weeks ago—we knew about its crippling of its unlimited plans back on July 27. That was long before Blockbuster heard about that Netflix price cut announced yesterday, which some commenters here on the Giz told us was not applicable for subscribers living on the East and West Coasts. But then we heard that a Netflix call center employee got a memo saying that the Netflix price decrease on its "three discs at a time" plan affects 6.7 million customers. Sounds like a majority.

It's great that existing Blockbuster customers won't see a price increase unless they change plans. But come on, Blockbuster, you can do better than that. It's your move. Netflix has a three-movies-through-the-mail price of $15.99, and your price for that same plan is $16.99. Let's see a corresponding price cut for 6.5 million of your customers. [Thanks, Ben!]

And this is only for the 3 DVDs, $17.99 plan. If you have the 2 DVD plan, you'll get 3 exchanges. The 1 DVD plan only gets 2 exchanges. The reason for this? Blockbuster's saying this will be a $38 value when you factor in the exchanges:

Value Message:Based on a member renting and returning two sets of DVDs in one month on the 3 out plan (with 5 in-store movie exchanges) for a total of 6 online rentals. Five (5) online rentals are then exchanged in-store for a free movie rental under BLOCKBUSTER Total Access, valued at the average in-store movie rental price of $4.00 each, totaling $20 in one month. Adding that to the base membership fee of $17.99 for the 3 out plan gives you a total monthly value of $38.

That doesn't even count the fact that they throttle your online mailers if you rent too many movies too often, which means you're getting less in-store exchanges anyway. Our tipster says they're taking down every sign that advertises the Total Access plan in store. Thanks, Blockbuster, for making it that much easier to recommend Netflix.

Thanks Jake!

Update: Looks like Blockbuster sent out an email yesterday saying they were changing plans on the 26...which is yesterday. Fortunately for me, I'm what they call a "preferred customer", and still get unlimited in-store rentals. (I still get the 2 free games or movies a month as well). So my plan doesn't change. Too bad for everyone else though. But if I make any changes to my plan, it'll move me to the new gimped rate plans and I'll lose my preferred status.

Dear Jason,

We want to let you know about some changes to our BLOCKBUSTER Total Access™ subscription plans. This information is provided for your reference only - your subscription plan will not be affected by these changes.

Beginning July 26, 2007, there will be a price increase on your current unlimited plan. We will also begin to offer plans which limit the number of in-store exchanges available each month.

As a preferred customer, your plan will not change at this time. Please continue to enjoy your exclusive subscription plan, including no monthly limit on free* movie rentals or discounted game rentals when you exchange in-store, at today's price - far below the published rate available to new subscribers.

At any point, you can log in and review your current subscription plan or see all available plans. Keep in mind that if you want to change your subscription plan at any point after July 26, 2007, your new plan will be subject to prices and terms available at that time.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.