CBS News has some new concept art and behind-the-scenes photos, and here are our favorites. Gilliam talked to CBS about the genesis of the movie's storyline, about a magic mirror behind which your imagination is tested — and if you fail, you lose your soul to Tom Waits' Devil. Apparently, the story comes from the sour reaction to Gilliam's previous film, Tideland, which made Gilliam want to make a movie about "the notion of a storyteller whose stories didn't have an audience," as CBS puts it.

Apparently the movie's biggest challenge was that tall, thin wagon, which couldn't fit under London bridges. Says Gilliam's daughter Amy, "That wagon was the bane of our lives."

Both Gilliams also talk about the shock of Heath Ledger's death, and the challenge of replacing him — as well as the unexpected richness the three replacement actors — Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law — added to the film. Instead of being labeled as a Terry Gilliam film, the finished product bears the sobriquet "A Film By Heath Ledger And Friends." The whole article is worth checking out. [CBS News]

Ron Novy, a lecturer at the University of Central Arkansas, argues that what Batman and the Joker have in common are formative traumas that highlight how easily order can slip away. Bruce Wayne, of course, saw his parents killed in front of him as a child, thus learning an unwelcome lesson about how peace can be upturned and the law can fail.

Novy draws on Alan Moore's semi-canonical Batman: The Killing Joke to explain how the Joker's experience mirrors Batman's own. In Killing Joke, the man who'll become the Joker is a struggling stand-up comic forced to turn to crime. His pregnant wife dies just before a botched break-in at a chemical plant, where the comedian falls into a vat of chemicals that turn him into a chalk-faced, green-haired ghoul. Seeing his reflection, his mind finally breaks, and a villain is born.

Throughout Killing Joke, the Joker keeps returning to his theory that "one bad day" is all it takes for a morally upright person to access their depraved side. If anyone can sympathize, Novy points out (as have others), it's the prematurely orphaned Bruce Wayne.

By Novy's lights, Batman and the Joker have each "glimpsed behind the curtain of appearances," learning all too well how artificial, and easily broken, are the rules and codes that keep the world running smoothly. The difference lies in how they use their insights. One fights to preserve the system; the other takes a jackhammer to it.

Novy doesn't mention The Dark Knight, possibly because that movie makes too much of the hero-villain kinship to support his conclusions. Even so, his essay and Heath Ledger's anarchic portrayal of the Joker — by turns acerbic, childlike, barbarous, and oddly feminine, as if he were bored even with the unwritten rules about how a man should walk or talk — seem to be in a kind of accidental dialogue.

At one point, Ledger's Joker is called crazy, and he flatly refutes it: "I'm not. No, I'm not." It's the most serious we'll see him in the whole movie. If anything, Ledger's Joker believes he's the sanest guy around. He understands things on a level that almost no one else does — the only other person operating without illusions is Batman himself.

It's that shared alienation, Novy suggests, that makes Batman and the Joker such perfectly matched foes. Though it's a bone-deep character trait that they only have in common with each other, it's also what drives their struggle — what Novy calls "a relationship without which each one would cease to be who he now is." Or as the Joker puts it in The Dark Night, "I think you and I are destined to do this forever."

What is it like to be a Batman? [The Philosophers' Magazine]

In Gilliam's film, the ancient and immortal Dr. Parnassus travels with a troupe of entertainers, including his teenage daughter Valentina. One of their attractions is the Imaginarium, a mystical mirror that transports people to a realm of imagination. But all is not well for the troupe; Parnassus long ago pledge any child he had to the Devil, and the time on their deal will soon be up. As the clock ticks down, Tony, a mysterious stranger, wanders into their midst.

Here, we meet Heath Ledger's Tony for the first time:

Parnassus helps the amnesiac Tony jog his memory:

A young carnival-goer takes a candy-coated jaunt through the Imagniarium:

Tony, now played by Colin Farrell, enjoys a romantic boat ride with Valentina:

And now Jude Law gets his turn as Tony, climbing a literal ladder to success:

And finally Johnny Depp plays Tony, although here he calls himself Barry:

And in non-Tony-related business, we get Dr. Parnassus' first meeting with the Devil:

And another meeting, during which Dr. Parnassus, who has agreed to give up any child he has in exchange for immortality, makes a new deal with the Devil:

[via Cinema Blend]

You have to admit the sight of Tom Waits as a sleazy, louche devil gets you kind of excited. And then there's the added visual evidence of Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell all playing the same person, which is something no other movie will ever attempt. Will the movie disappoint? You'll find out for yourself, when it opens Oct. 16.

[Cinemablend and Playlist]

First off it looks like we're getting extra helpings of Terry Gilliam's demented psychedelic world, and a whole lotta wire-work. Let's keep our fingers crossed for Gilliam's success, so we can possibly get more than one Gilliam movie every five years.

Here's the wild synopsis:

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a fantastical morality tale, set in the present day. It tells the story of Dr Parnassus and his extraordinary 'Imaginarium', a travelling show where members of the audience get an irresistible opportunity to choose between light and joy or darkness and gloom. Blessed with the extraordinary gift of guiding the imaginations of others, Dr Parnassus is cursed with a dark secret. Long ago he made a bet with the devil, Mr Nick, in which he won immortality. Many centuries later, on meeting his one true love, Dr Parnassus made another deal with the devil, trading his immortality for youth, on condition that when his first-born reached its 16th birthday he or she would become the property of Mr Nick. Valentina is now rapidly approaching this 'coming of age' milestone and Dr Parnassus is desperate to protect her from her impending fate. Mr Nick arrives to collect but, always keen to make a bet, renegotiates the wager. Now the winner of Valentina will be determined by whoever seduces the first five souls. Enlisting a series of wild, comical and compelling characters in his journey, Dr Parnassus promises his daughter's hand in marriage to the man that helps him win. In this captivating, explosive and wonderfully imaginative race against time, Dr Parnassus must fight to save his daughter in a never-ending landscape of surreal obstacles - and undo the mistakes of his past once and for all...

Doctor Parnassus will be out October 16th.

In the film, Christopher Plummer plays Dr. Parnassus, a traveling showman who, a thousand years ago made a deal with the Devil: Parnassus could live forever, but any children he had would become property of the Devil upon their sixteenth birthday. As Parnassus' daughter Valentina approaches her sixteenth birthday, the Devil returns to collect. Ledger plays Tony, a mysterious outsider who suddenly joins the troupe and arouses Parnassus' suspicions.

The trailer takes us inside Parnassus' Imaginarium, a magical mirror that transports people to strange and surreal worlds. We also get a look at Tony's transformations after Ledger's untimely death led to Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law being cast as Tony's additional forms. It's visually striking, to be sure, but we'll have to wait to see if it all adds up to a movie.

If you were watching last night's unusual ceremony (Hugh Jackman gave it his all, but still) - or, more entertainingly, following the Twitter commentary along at home - it won't come as news that not getting a Best Picture or Best Director nomination was only the beginning of The Dark Knight's woes; despite being nominated for 8 awards, the movie only took home two (Ledger's and Best Sound Editing). Also robbed, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which only won 3 of its 13 nominated categories - although, admittedly, I took Wall-E not winning Best Original Screenplay much worse, even though it had less of a hope. Overall, it wasn't a particularly interesting night - the winners weren't incredibly surprising, the hosts weren't incredibly entertaining, and there wasn't even that much to get annoyed about afterwards (Who can really begrudge Slumdog Millionaire's wins?). Still, at least we got to see host Hugh Wolverine Jackman standing up for Batman and other costumed characters in his opening performance (Skip to 1:30 for a strange complaint about The Dark Knight not being recognized properly):

How can a billion dollars be unsophisticated indeed, Mr. Jackman.

Last night's winners in full:
Best picture: Slumdog Millionaire

Best director: Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire

Best actor: Sean Penn - Milk

Best actress: Kate Winslet - The Reader

Best supporting actor: Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

Best supporting actress: Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best original screenplay: Milk

Best adapted screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire

Best animated feature film: Wall-E

Best animated short film: La Maison en Petits Cubes

Best foreign language film: Departures - Japan

Best documentary feature: Man on Wire

Best documentary short subject: Smile Pinki

Art direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Costume design: The Duchess

Make-up: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire

Best live action short film: Spielzeugland (Toyland)

Visual effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Sound editing: The Dark Knight

Sound mixing: Slumdog Millionaire

Film editing:Slumdog Millionaire

Best original score: Slumdog Millionaire

Best original song: "Jai Ho" - Slumdog Millionaire

The gloom and doom begins with the titular baddie—wearing Ledger’s thickly scarred, elongated smirk—inexplicably released from Arkham Asylum. He stomps his way through the wrought-iron gates before flipping the city the bird. We spot a recidivist! Since it’s no fun being privy to the protagonist’s unpredictable, sinister thoughts, we’re instead saddled with Johnny Frost, a taciturn career criminal/Joker groupie who acts as our uncharismatic narrator. His arc is a sincere, if obvious, one—wrestling with his conscience in the face of escalating carnage—presumably making him an unwitting foil to his boss who steals the spotlight handily. The Joker, you see, shrugs off his post-prison ennui by instigating a bloody turf-war involving a rogue’s gallery of Gotham villains: among them The Penguin, The Riddler, and Two-Face. His goal, of course, isn’t lucre, but rather, power.

Azzarello and artist Lee Bermejo make a few half-hearted attempts at psychoanalyzing their merciless muse—a prison story here, a fleeting expression of vulnerability there—to no end. Perhaps this is for the best: Few deep interpretations, if any, rival Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke. And after all, what made Ledger’s portrayal of the felon so transformative was the utter disregard for his motivation, punctuated by the Joker’s cheeky, bathetic explanations for his facial scars. In contrast, this graphic novel suffers a bit from the singularity of its central character. Where Ledger (and his script) imbued the Joker with a searing mix of wit and fiendishness, Azzarello makes him a ghoul who rattles off a few puns about Two-Face’s unfortunate cutaeous condition. Bermejo’s illustrations, meanwhile, dither curiously between nicely crinkled, craggled renderings and the occasional richly painted panel—for no discernable reason.

Where is Batman during all of this? Intriguingly, the man in black is intimated but not really name-checked; that leaves The Joker as our mercurial anti-hero. Azzarello’s clever set-up would work, but for the almost-categoric unlikeability of this brutish evildoer, which isn't helped by the lack of insight into the politics of the underworld. Here, the baddies simply hunt and spar prodigiously, quaking in their boots as the marquee star shows off his knack for setting-off explosions. When all is done, it's hard to take this Joker, which feels more like a dazzling spree than a gripping story, too seriously.

The book hits stores Oct. 29.

Image courtesy of DC Comics

For its part, Warner Bros is convinced that Ledger's part in The Dark Knight was a supporting one, and something that Entertainment Weekly's Dave Karger supports for more cynical reasons:

[T]he most important thing to consider is his chance at the win. I doubt he'd have a shot at beating The Wrestler's Mickey Rourke, or Milk's Sean Penn, or Frost/Nixon's Frank Langella in the Best Actor race. But in the supporting category, his strongest likely competitor is Doubt's Philip Seymour Hoffman, coincidentally the man who defeated Ledger for Best Actor the only other time Ledger was nominated, for Brokeback Mountain. While Hoffman's Capote performance was the sure bet back then, this time it could be a true toss-up.

For my part, I think that the role is most definitely a supporting one. Despite how powerful Ledger's performance was - and it was easily the strongest thing about the movie as a whole, in my opinion - the focus was never really on the Joker as a character, but the effect that he had on others - most notably, Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent. The focus of the film was really those two characters, and if anyone deserves a Best Actor nod from the movie (and I don't think anyone really does, to be honest), it'd be Aaron Eckhart for his take on Dent.

There's been a lot of buzz - and rightfully so- about Ledger's Joker, but I think that it's almost placed too much importance on both the character's place within the movie, and the actor's. Ledger deserves to be nominated for - and, probably, win - the Best Supporting Actor award not because that's where he stands the best chance of winning or because the movie wasn't called The Joker, but because, ultimately, that's what his role actually was in the film everyone saw.

Heath Ledger "100% Supporting" [EW.com]

According to The Hollywood Reporter, potential distributors drawn in by the publicity aspect of releasing Ledger's last film quickly find themselves pushed away again by Gilliam's involvement. The director, famous for scifi great Brazil, hasn't had a successful movie since 1995's Twelve Monkeys. One distributor is quoted as saying, "In this market, unless I have a reason to think a movie like this is going to be a slam dunk I'm not going to take a flyer on it, even with Heath Ledger."

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus involves parallel worlds, regeneration and deals with the devil — and Ledger's role in the movie will likely be taken over by Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law. But even that isn't enough to guarantee the movie a deal, apparently:

The prospect of getting involved with three marketable stars makes for a relative bargain for a buyer, who might pay low-seven figures for domestic rights but get an eight-figure level of promotable talent.

But even that troika might not be enough.

Said one longtime distribution guru: "For all the elements in this film, it is a Terry Gilliam picture, and as much as you want a movie of his to be good, you have to be careful."

Heath Ledger's final movie a tough sell [Hollywood Reporter]

There are even more heroes in action at Sienkiewicz Art, and more of the Dark Knight art is at Ain't It Cool News.

[Ain't It Cool News]

The Dark Knight is very clearly a film of two halves, as the cliche goes. The first half is impressive, if flawed: Foregoing the flash of an Iron Man or Incredible Hulk in favor of direction and visuals that seem more influenced by movies like Michael Clayton and Heat, it's successful in spite of the men in the funny outfits fighting over who can try to save the day. In fact, for the first half of the movie, it's as if everyone involved is kind of embarrassed about Batman's involvement... which makes sense, considering Bale's performance when he's wearing the costume, all near-parodic husky whispers and threatening pouting (He's better as Bruce Wayne, thankfully). The movie comes to life more when we're watching Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent and Gary Oldman's Jim Gordon as the last two good men in Gotham trying to deal with the chaos caused by the Joker's appearance in the criminal underworld than watching Batman stiffly fight dogs and men in clown masks.

Not that there aren't good action set pieces - the climactic chase through Gotham where the Joker is both trying to kill Harvey Dent and simultaneously just piss off Batman is wonderful, over-the-top enough to be spectacular but realistic enough to be thrillingly believable, edge of the seat, viewing. A shame, then, that it happens less than halfway into the movie itself.

That's the main problem with The Dark Knight. We can put up with bad dialogue, accidentally homoerotic scenes of male bonding (The scenes of Harvey and Bruce falling for each other are unintentionally hilarious) and unimpressive second-fiddle villains as long as we have a story that actually worked. Instead, we get a movie that wraps up all of its themes with a literally explosive climax about ninety minutes in, and then forgets to stop. When Maggie Gyllenhall's Rachel Dawes - Katie Holmes' character from Batman Begins - gets killed as the result of the Joker's schemes at the same time that he escapes from the Gotham City police station and causes the accident that turns Dent into Two-Face, we're given a strong emotional end to all of the movie's character arcs - The (already cynical) idealism of the heroes has been shown as naive, Dent has compromised his morals for the woman he loves, and Batman has realized that he can't save everyone. It's a downer of an ending, but it is an ending... something that the moviemakers seem to have either missed, or else felt compelled to ignore in order to give the audience some kind of closure that is completely unnecessary.

Everything that follows the death of Rachel betrays the tone and intent of what came before. Batman goes from flawed hero to a man who - thanks to his new cell-phone-tapping sonar technology - can now see through walls, hear every conversation in the city, single-handedly defeat a SWAT team and the Joker and his henchmen all at the same time. Dent goes from a nuanced but fucked-up character to one-dimensional one-schtick murderer out for revenge at any cost. As the plotlines pile-up on each other - and there are three subplots in particular that serve no purpose whatsoever, although I guess that Chris Nolan got a trip to Hong Kong with one of them. The movie devolves into crass melodrama, something that is made all the more obvious by the end of the movie, where a small blond child tells his daddy (and the audience) that despite everything, Batman has done nothing wrong. The boy's daddy - Oldman's Jim Gordon, at this point finally the police commissioner - gives a long and sprawling monologue about the fact that Batman isn't a hero, he's more than a hero, he's a "silent guardian" and Gotham City's "dark knight."

The end of the movie in particular is, despite the intent of the creators, far too neat and tidy: The bad guys are either dead or captured, Batman makes a noble sacrifice for the good of his city, and everyone else pretty much goes on about their business in exactly the same way as they had at the start of the movie. It's a lazy and, considering the unsettling nature of the first half of the film, frustratingly safe way to finish.

There is one area, however, where all of the hype is earned: Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker really is everything people have been saying. Nervous, edgy, uncertain, he's magnetic everytime he's on-screen, and by far the best thing about the movie. For the first time outside of the comics - and perhaps just the first time anywhere - the Joker actually is scary and disturbing, fucking with everyone's heads just for the hell of it. Even when his character gets reduced to near-generic expositionary villain at the end of the movie, Ledger's performance really sells it. I don't know if that means that it's Oscar-worthy, as people have been saying, but it's stunning, stunning work.

The best way to enjoy The Dark Knight may really be to just leave once you've seen Aaron Eckhart lying in the hospital bed, half of his face, covered in gauze, weeping; it's not just that it doesn't get any better than that, but that it gets much, much worse. Stick around at your own risk.

Oldman and Nolan confirmed the next Batman villain would be The Riddler, last played by Jim Carrey in Batman Forever. Asked whether they would recast the role of the Joker due to the sad passing of actor Heath Ledger Oldman expressed his great appreciation for Ledger's portrayal, and said, "Maybe we don't need the Joker. Because we'll have The Riddler." Fascinating, how will Nolan bring to life such an over-the-top character? Granted he brought The Joker to deep and dark reality, so The Riddler could very well be a slightly believable villain.

Director Chris Nolan had no idea about bringing back The Joker, and in fact he says he's not especially gung ho about making a third Batman movie in the first place. When asked about making a third film, Nolan tells Movie Web, "I don't know. I take my projects one at a time, and I am not thinking about that right now. I don't know if I want to come back." Whoa — what's with the sour grapes? You've been making movie magic, why not round out the series while you still have all the actors you love under contract? [Movie Web]

[ComingSoon]

Here's the official episode summary. I love that she's a conservative talk-show host when she's not dressing like a freak:

THE GREEN ARROW AND BLACK CANARY BATTLE IN SMALLVILLE — While secretly working for Oliver (guest star Justin Hartley), Chloe (Allison Mack) intercepts one of Lex's (Michael Rosenbaum) project files, but she is attacked by the Black Canary (guest star Alaina Huffman), a mystery woman with a subsonic cry. Dinah Lance, Black Canary's alter ego, is a conservative talk show host who is working at the Daily Planet and clashes with Lois (Erica Durance).