More viral marketing for The Dark Knight has been found at Clowntravelagency.com to further elevate your anticipation. Having entered the site, you’re just a few clicks away from filling out your name and phone number. Once you submit this information, be on guard for a phone call. If you dare answer it, say the given password “needle”.

On the other end, you will hear Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon interrogate you as a found member of the Joker’s gang.

“Let’s get a smile on that face!”

The Dark Knight comes to theatres July 18th.

Yesterday, Ratatouille (2007) composer Michael Giacchino’s Roar, an eight-minute musical ode to 50s era Godzilla movies, has been made available on iTunes (only the US version). I couldn’t be happier. This was the only piece of an instrumental music to play over the entirity of J.J. Abrams’ produced Cloverfield, which was reserved for the end credits sequence.

There were only two elements of Cloverfield I enjoyed, in spite of how the filmmakers used their “hand held” camera like they were shaking a martini for 75 minutes. This brings new meaning to enjoying the end credits more than what preceded it. The music was like an award for enduring this tarnished hyped-up spectacle.

What I also enjoyed was really a who, Lizzy Caplan as Marlena. She was the only compelling character who had enough snark to go around the crowd of young, irritating drips surrounding her. To add insult to bug infection, she exited far too soon. With over a half-an-hour left, I was stuck the other survivors, too bored to cheer their deaths. At least, Marlena’s was kinda cool.

Followed by a strong cult following, the demand was as strong as the wait. Negotiations between iTunes over the release the Giacchino’s original cut of the score, which has been extended by five minutes, were met. Giacchino has said, “…there (were) a bunch of legal knots that need(ed) to be tied.”

Listening to the score again, I was reminded of Danny Elfman’s turbulently operatic score for Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks (1996). This main title sequence is so good that I could watch it forty-two times in the amount of time it would take to watch the actual movie.

The 2:06 mark is a killer.

There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
Zodiac (dir. David Fincher)
Once (dir. John Carney)
Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (dir. Tim Burton)
Ratatouille (dir. Brad Bird)
Brand Upon the Brain! (dir. Guy Maddin)
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (dir. Cristian Mungiu)
Black Book (dir. Paul Verhoeven)
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (dir. Sidney Lumet)
Michael Clayton (dir. Tony Gilroy)
Zoo (dir. Robinson Devor)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (dir. Julian Schnabel)
No Country for Old Men (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
(dir. Andrew Dominik)
Eastern Promises (dir. David Cronenberg)
The Lookout (dir. Scott Frank)
Grindhouse (dir. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino)
with a nod to Death Proof and a wink to Thanksgiving (dir. Eli Roth)
Starting Out in the Evening (dir. Andrew Wagner)
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts (dir. Scott Hicks)
Stephanie Daley (dir. Hilary Brougher)
You, The Living (dir. Roy Andersson)
The Savages (dir. Tamara Jenkins)
Away from Her (dir. Sarah Polley)
Juno (dir. Jason Reitman)
Sicko (dir. Michael Moore)
Margo at the Wedding (dir. Noah Baumbach)
Persepolis (dir. Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud)
Lake of Fire (dir. Tony Kaye)
Joshua (dir. George Ratliff)
Hot Fuzz (dir. Edgar Wright)
The Kite Runner (dir. Marc Forster)
Charlie Wilson’s War (dir. Mike Nichols)
Waitress (dir. Adrienne Shelly)
No End in Sight (dir. Charles Ferguson)
Paris, Je T’aime (dir. 22 Filmmakers)
Snow Angels (dir. David Gordon Green)
In the Valley of Elah (dir. Paul Haggis)
Bridges to Terabithia (dir. Gabor Csupo)
Terror’s Advocate (dir. Barbet Schroeder)
Breach (dir. Billy Ray)
Boy A (dir. John Crowley)
Frownland (dir. Ronald Bronstein)
The Mist (dir Frank Darabont)
Atonement (dir. Joe Wright)
La Vie en Rose (dir. Olivier Dahan)
Romance & Cigarettes (dir. John Turturro)
Gone Baby Gone (dir. Ben Affleck)
No Reservations (dir. Scott Hicks)
The Simpsons Movie (dir. David Silverman)
Into the Wild (dir. Sean Penn)
Hairspray (dir. Adam Shankman)
The Darjeeling Limited (dir. Wes Anderson)
Please Vote for Me (dir. Weijun Chen)
3:10 to Yuma (dir. James Mangold)
The Bourne Ultimatum (dir. Paul Greengrass)
A Mighty Heart (dir. Michael Winterbottom)
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (dir. Seth Gordon)
1408 (dir. Mikael Håfström)
Your Mommy Kills Animals (dir. Curt Johnson)
Brick Lane (dir. Sarah Gavron)
Lars and the Real Girl (dir. Craig Gillespie)
An American Crime (dir. Tommy O’Haver)
Helvetica (dir. Gary Hustwit)
Year of the Dog (dir. Mike White)
The Great Debaters (dir. Denzel Washington)
Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna) (dir. Patricia Riggen)
The Brave One (dir. Neil Jordon)
Shoot ‘Em Up (dir. Michael Davis)
American Gangster (dir. Ridley Scott)

Little Children (dir. Todd Field)
Pan’s Labyrinth (dir. Guillermo del Toro)
Children of Men (dir. Alfonso Cuarón)
United 93 (dir. Paul Greengrass)
Paprika (dir. Satoshi Kon)
Tristram Shanty: A Cock and Bull Story (dir. Michael Winterbottom)
Man Push Cart (dir. Ramin Bahrani)
The King (dir. James Marsh)
The Descent (dir. Neil Marshall)
The Proposition (dir. John Hillcoat)
The Illusionist (dir. Neil Burger)
The Lives of Others (dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
Babel (dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu)
The Queen (dir. Stephen Frears)
Stranger Than Fiction (dir. Marc Forster)
Little Miss Sunshine (dir. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris)
Climates (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit
Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (dir. Larry Charles)
Inland Empire (dir. David Lynch)
Flags of Our Fathers | Letters from Iwo Jima (dir. Clint Eastwood)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (dir. Cristi Puiu)
Red Road (dir. Andrea Arnold)
Notes on a Scandal (dir. Richard Eyre)
The Departed (dir. Martin Scorsese)
Bubble (dir. Steven Soderbergh)
The Last King of Scotland (dir. Kevin Macdonald)
Deliver Us from Evil (dir. Amy Berg)
Bug (dir. William Friedkin)
Open Window (dir. Mia Goldman)
The Notorious Bettie Page (dir. Mary Harron)
Marie Antoinette (dir. Sofia Coppola)
The Dead Girl (dir. Karen Moncrieff)
The Bridge (dir. Eric Steel)
Joyeux Noel (dir. Christian Carion)
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (dir. Adam McKay)
Casino Royale (dir. Martin Campbell)
Blood Diamond (dir. Edward Zwick)
Edmond (dir. Stuart Gordon)
Curse of the Golden Flower (dir. Yimou Zhang)
Half Nelson (dir. Ryan Fleck)
Conversations with Other Women (dir. Hans Canosa)
Brick (dir. Rian Johnson)
A Prairie Home Companion (dir. Robert Altman)
This Is England (dir. Shane Meadows)
Lassie (dir. Charles Sturridge)
Something New (dir. Sanaa Hamri)
The Good Shepard (dir. Robert De Niro)
Apocalypto (dr. Mel Gibson)
Come Early Morning (dir. Joey Lauren Adams)
Old Joy (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
Rescue Dawn (dir. Werner Herzog)
Slither (dir. James Gunn)
Friends with Money (dir. Nicole Holofcener)
12 and Holding (dir. Michael Cuesta)
V for Vendetta (dir. James McTeigue)
Monster House (dir. Gil Kenan)
Fast Food Nation | A Scanner Darkly (dir. Richard Linklater)
Bobby (dir. Emilio Estevez)
The Namesake (dir. Mira Nair)
12:08 East of Bucharest (dir. Corneliu Porumboiu)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (dir. Ken Loach)
The Night Listener (dir. Patrick Stettne)
Shut Up & Sing (dir. Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (dir. Tom Tykwer)
Sherrybaby (dir. Laurie Collyer)
Venus (dir. Roger Michell)
Strangers with Candy (dir. Paul Dinello)
Hollywoodland (dir. Allen Coulter)
Taking Lives (dir. D.J. Caruso)
Idiocracy (dir. Mike Judge)
The Prestige (dir. Christopher Nolan)
Time (dir. Ki-duk Kim)
Fido (dir. Andrew Currie)
Black Snake Moan (dir. Craig Brewer)
Akeelah and the Bee (dir. Doug Atchison)
Manufactured Landscapes (dir. Jennifer Baichwal)
Flushed Away (dir. David Bowers and Sam Fell)
Water (dir. Deepa Mehta)
A Good Year (dir. Ridley Scott)
Breaking and Entering (dir. Anthony Minghella)
Jesus Camp (dir. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady)
Clerks II (dir. Kevin Smith)
Dreamgirls (dir. Bill Condon)
Manderlay (dir. Lars von Trier)
This Film Is Not Yet Rated (dir. Kirby Dick)
Tekkonkinkreet (dir. Michael Arias)

Capote (dir. Bennett Miller)
A History of Violence (dir. David Cronenberg)
The Best of Youth (dir. Marco Tullio Giordana)
Schultze Gets The Blues (dir. Michael Schorr)
Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee)
Me and You and Everyone We Know (dir. Miranda July)
Sin City (dir. Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller)
Mysterious Skin (dir. Gregg Araki)
Duane Hopwood (dir. Matt Mulhern)
Junebug (dir. Phil Morrison)
Nine Lives (dir. Rodrigo Garcí­a)
The Squid and the Whale (dir. Noah Baumbach)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (dir. Tommy Lee Jones)
Munich (dir. Steven Spielberg)
The Weather Man (dir. Gore Verbinski)
Sweet Land (dir. Ali Selim)
Oldboy (dir. Chan-wook Park)
Saraband (dir. Ingmar Bergman)
Millions (dir. Danny Boyle)
Nuit Noire, 17 Octobre 1961 (dir. Alain Tasma)
Firecracker (dir. Steve Balderson)
Match Point (dir. Woody Allen)
Tokyo Godfathers (dir. Satoshi Kon)
Downfall (dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel)
The 40 Year Old Virgin (dir. Judd Apatow)
Volver (dir. Pedro Almodóvar)
Crash (dir. Paul Haggis)
Shopgirl (dir. Anand Tucker)
Good Night, and Good Luck (dir. George Clooney)
Batman Begins (dir. Christopher Nolan)
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (dir. Alex Gibney)
The New World (dir. Terrance Malick)
Eve and the Fire Horse (dir. Julia Kwan)
Yes (dir. Sally Potter)
Cache (aka Hidden) (dir. Michael Haneke)
Syriana (dir. Stephen Gaghan)
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (dir. Nick Park)
Lord of War (dir. Andrew Niccol)
King Kong (dir. Peter Jackson)
Thumbsucker (dir. Mike Mills)
Grizzly Man (dir. Werner Herzog)
Hard Candy (dir. David Slade)
Paradise Now (dir. Hany Abu-Assad)
L’enfant (dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
The Upside of Anger (dir. Mike Binder)
The Matador (dir. Richard Shepard)
Look Both Ways (dir. Sarah Watt)
Hustle & Flow (dir. Craig Brewer)
North Country (dr. Niki Caro)
Our Daily Bread (dir. Nikolaus Geyrhalter)
Three Times (dir. Hsiao-hsien Hou)
Three… Extremes
(dir. Fruit Chan “Dumplings”, Chan-wook Park “Cut”, Takashi Miike “Box”)
Broken Flowers (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
Pride & Prejudice (dir. Joe Wright)
Duma (dir. Carroll Ballard)
Mrs Henderson Presents (dir. Stephen Frears)
Thieves of Innocence (dir. Paul Arcand)
Walk the Line (dir. James Mangold)
Prime (dir. Ben Younger)
Fever Pitch (dir. Bobby and Peter Farrelly)
Murderball (dir. Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro)
Corpse Bride (dir. Tim Burton and Mike Johnson)
The Aristocrats (dir. Paul Provenza)
Jarhead (dir. Sam Mendes)
Off the Map (dir. Campbell Scott)
Stay (dir. Marc Forster)
March of the Penguins (dir. Luc Jacquet)
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (dir. Marc Rothemund)
The Greatest Game Ever Played (dir. Bill Paxton)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (dir. Tim Burton)
Where the Truth Lies (dir. Atom Egoyan)
The World’s Fastest Indian (dir. Roger Donaldson)
Havoc (dir. Barbara Kopple)
Sky High (dir. Mike Mitchell)
Cinderella Man (dir. Ron Howard)
Bee Season (dir. Scott McGehee and David Siegel)
Wah-Wah (dir. Richard E. Grant)
Game 6 (dir. Michael Hoffman)
In Her Shoes (dir. Curtis Hanson)
Tupac: Resurrection (dir. Lauren Lazin)
Funky Forest: The First Contact (dir. Katsuhito Ishii and Hajime Ishimine)
Domino (dir. Tony Scott)

Honourable Selection: The “Up” Documentaries

49 Up (dir. Michael Apted, 2005)
42 Up (dir. Michael Apted, 1998)
35 Up (dir. Michael Apted, 1991)
28 Up (dir. Michael Apted, 1984)
21 Up (dir. Michael Apted, 1977)
7 Plus Seven (dir. Michael Apted, 1970)
Seven Up! (dir. Paul Almond, 1964)