Crimminey, I wish logic and reasoning were the only two things I had to use on my wife to make her see the point.

(And this is not against women in general, just my wife!)

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No one cared about Bale before Batman Begins. Furthermore, Bale has never been in a acclaimed, successful, etc movie without having an incredibly talented co-star - Russel Crowe, Hugh Jackman, etc. Will Smith on another hand, has carried how many movies on his back alone?

The irritating thing is, it doesn't seem like we'll get the opportunity to see Bale in a movie that doesn't have a more talented costar to carry him. Though, take a look at two films where Bale wasn't paired with an acting powerhouse, American Psycho and The Machinist, both were incredibly mediocre and only garnered significant attention after Batman Begins.

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Will Smith isn't all that great an actor either, but he does Will Smith Movies, where Bale works on other peoples' projects. Harrison Ford may have the best record for mega-blockbuster hits (he is the only person who has ever starred in ten films that have broken $300 million domestic, thanks to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises), but Will Smith has the longest unbroken run for movies that have broken $100 million domestic (Wild Wild West was his last box office flop, regardless of whether any of his films since then should have followed suit). He's also been releasing a summer blockbuster on July 4 going back to ID4 (if not earlier), so he's a regular paycheck waiting to happen, and he's started getting into feel-good Oscar-chasers.

Now, all that being said, Denzel can act circles around Smith (there's so much more to being a great actor than simply churning out popcorn flicks year after year), and Batman Begins will likely be the only movie in the Nolanverse that features Batman as the focal character (from here on out, it'll be more about his rogues gallery).

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A-ha, a-ha!

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"Aw hell no!"

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And seriously, no matter how many flops Will Smith makes, see Seven Pounds, he will still be guaranteed to get any movie he wants made. He is superman in box office terms. Hell he's the only actor around who can get a movie made solely on his backing. Even Clooney and Pitt need producers or other cast with them, or just a low budget.

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Awesome, awesome, awesome.

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Swap Kanye out and Russel in, and you're gold. Remember that RTD still has Torchwood and SJA in production, and Dr. Who has those '09 specials.

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And the most important adage to remember is that if you find yourself in the middle of a film, marvelling over how awesome the SFX are, that's the surest sign possible that they really aren't. Truly great SFX work tends to go unnoticed, sorta like how truly great stunt work is often chided for looking too fake (e.g. the off-the-wall flip-turn with the Batpod in TDK, or even the simple fact that all those driving shots were done with a real person in a real costume with a real cape on a real motorcycle-from-hell), and ILM still dominates WETA in that regard. I can't say for sure that they're still the best in the business, but they're still leaps and bounds beyond what WETA has managed to hoist themselves up to now that they aren't spending forever-and-a-day working on just the one single project anymore.

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I also love the theme song to Fringe. Here's me playing it:

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