Some of the still images of Heath Ledger asThe Joker that have been released (or leaked) ahead of the Batman sequel, The Dark Knight:

I'm relieved that Maggie Gyllenhaal will be taking over the Rachel Dawes role played by Katie Holmes-Cruise in the first film. Maybe she can make the character...you know...in any way interesting.

Now You can see (er...hear) a trailer that includes a horribly teasing little bit of the Joker's laugh near the end here.

Tonight's the premiere of The Independent Film Channel's documentary series, Indie Sex, hosted by famous burlesque performer (and former wife of Marilyn Manson) Dita Von Teese.

N&R columnist Jeri Rowe left advance-copy DVDs of the entire series on my desk yesterday. He claims they still send him these things because he is the former editor of Go Triad...and we pretend to believe him.

Anyway -- it's a four part exploration of the sex in cinema and the way Independent films have always dealt differently (and usually more honestly) with sex than larger budget, mainstream films. I've watched the first episode, "Censored," which is a look at why sex is presented the way it is in film -- and what forces shape that presentation.

It's good -- I'm definitely looking forward to getting into the rest of the series. And Von Teese has a charisma that goes beyond her being gorgeous. Which is, I suppose, why she can do that voodoo that she do so well.

Even more interesting net-related stuff coinciding with the series:

- IFC and Nerve's list of the 50 Greatest Sex Scenes in Cinema (link is probably not work safe). They're unveiling ten a day through Friday and so far they're pretty good. What's your favorite scene/scenes?

- Also, take the Indie Sex Quiz.

- Or, get a look at Dita's 10 Most Tantalizing Films Ever.

- Lastly, there are these online video interviews from the series itself.

Looks like Hunter S. Thompson's first novel, The Rum Diary, really is coming to the Big Screen.

The semi-autobiographical novel, published after Thompson became famous as a journalist and author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, concerns his early days as a reporter in Puerto Rico.

Johnny Depp is reportedly playing Thompson, a role he lived with Thompson to perfect in Terry Gilliam's film version of Fear and Loathing.

Having whetted its appetite for epic space-opera retreads with the extremely successful (and then extremely canceled) Battlestar Galactica, the Sci-Fi channel now offers us...

FLASH GORDON.

No, really. Flash Gordon.

Sad news.

The Flash Gordon pilot is not very good.

Now -- let me preface this by saying that the DVD I've seen was a very, very rough cut.

Special effects were missing and text would roll across the screen explaining: "THIS THE PART WHERE A GIANT SPACE SHIP APPEARS, WHICH IS WHY EVERYONE'S LOOKING INTO THE SKY AND GASPING!"

There were a number of scenes where the actors were walking past green screens that I'm assuming will eventually be lavishly created other-worlds or where a pivotal plot point was revealed with an effect that just didn't happen. Some of the sound and music cues weren't there yet, either, or shots were just missing, replaced with black screens that said: "ESTABLISHING SHOT, HOME."

But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that the concept has been reimagined in a way that isn't (yet) very interesting. It's very much like that first season of Smallville where, if it hadn't been for the fact that you know this kid is going to grow up to be Superman, you probably wouldn't have watched a show about a bunch of poorly developed high school characters running around in Kansas fighting a different mutant monster created by meteors every week.

But there are two important differences between these two series....

Holy flaming trash!

Filmmaker John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, Mondo Trasho) is coming to Greensboro's Carolina Theatre next month!

Go Triad reports that he'll perform his one man show, An Evening With John Waters, Sept.22 at the downtown theatre, which is celebrating its 80th season.

If there are any tickets left, I'm getting them today. Who's coming with me?

I realize that many consider me an oddity in the world of gaming -- I'm a woman who actually enjoys playing video games, who spends money and time on my hobby, and who could probably kick your butt at many of the games I play.

According to the Entertainment Software Association, 43 percent of video-game players are female, and it's a growing population. Granted, part of that number includes people like my mom, who play casual games online such as Bejeweled and Mahjong. But a large number of that percentage are people like me -- women who enjoy playing all those video games that are marketed so strongly toward men. Knights of the Old Republic, the Grand Theft Auto series, Gauntlet, Baldur's Gate, the Dead or Alive series -- these top the list of the games I play over and over again.

Even if I don't fit your preconceived notion of what a gamer looks like, I deserve to be treated with respect -- something that is severely lacking for female gamers in many areas of the gaming world.

This is, apparently, strange movie news week.

Behold:

* My fanboy dreams come true, as they're apparently making a Jonny Quest movie.

* My Will Farrell nightmares come true, as he's apparently made another goofy sports movie. That's three of them now, for anyone who's counting. Four, if you count Kicking and Screaming. Which I don't. Does some studio boss have dirty pictures of him with a sheep or something?

* SNL digital short genius Andy Samberg (of "Lazy Sunday" and "D*ck In a Box" fame) has made his first film, Hot Rod. And it is apparently just effing awful. Which is disappointing, but somehow not surprising. I like the guy and hope they paid him enough to do it his way next time.

* Tom Cruise may make a cameo in the new Star Trek movie, playing the Enterprise's original captain.

* Apparently emboldened by the new Sci-Fi Channel series, they've released a new DVD edition of the 1980 Flash Gordon film. Flash Gordon: Savior of the Universe Edition features enhanced picture quality, sound, that awesome-in-its-ridiculousness soundtrack by Queen and some never-before-seen footage from one of the most unintentionally hilarious films of all time.

George Harrison proposed to her the first day he met her.

After they were married, he wrote "Something" for her.

Though she was married to his best friend, Eric Clapton fell in love with her -- a love-triangle drama that inspired "Layla" and led him to become a junkie.

Later, after the two were married, she was the woman in Clapton's "Wonderful, Tonight."

Who is this modern musical Mata Hari?

She's Pattie Boyd and she's releasing a tell-all autobiography, Wonderful Today, on August 23.

As part of the promotion England's Daily Mail has run a two-part excerpt from the book.

Among the book's many strange revelations:

1) Apparently Harrison returned from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in India in 1968 he was obsessed with becoming a Krishna figure, "a spiritual beings with lots of concubines." After telling his wife this he began bedding just about anything that would wriggle, including one of Clapton's ex-girlfriends and Ringo's wife.

2) Clapton was living with Boyd's younger sister when he first professed his love for her in an anonymous letter.

3) Clatpon was apparently quite the ladies man, but couldn't get Boyd out of her knickers until he played a pre-release version of "Layla" for her. Even then, she slept with him but wouldn't leave her husband. He threatened to become a junkie if she wouldn't be his -- when she said no, that's just what he did.

4) Clapton was fond of writing her love letters on the pages of books, including John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" and a book of Scottish ballads.

5) Harrison was often busy shagging his friends' ex-girlfriends and wives, but he didn't take his best friend's advances toward his wife lying down. This is how Boyd describes a bizarre confrontation between the two which eerily presaged the alleged "dance off" between an estranged Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears years later:

"One evening the actor John Hurt was with us. Eric was due to come over too and George decided to have it out with him. John wanted to make himself scarce but George insisted he stay.

That whole period was insane."

Clearly.

Boyd doesn't leave anyone looking like an angel -- including herself. She confesses to drug and alcohol abuse, adultery and (maybe, it's hard to tell) a brief affair with Ron Wood of the Faces and later the Rolling Stones.

The descriptions of people with way too much money, way too many drugs and way too few inhibitions are a little jarring, even to those of us sort of dulled to that sort of thing by modern celebrity gossip. There's a different sort of edge to it because we're not talking about people who we aren't sure whether we'll care about in five years -- we're talking about rock legends, here.

According to AP, up to 1,500 prisoners participate in the exercise yard of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, and their version of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" had been watched nearly 4.4 million times on YouTube as of Thursday.

Crisanto Nierre plays Michael Jackson's role in "Thriller." "Before the dancing, our problems were really heavy to bear. Dancing takes our minds away from our problems. Our bodies became more healthy. As for the judges, they may be impressed with us, seeing that we are being rehabilitated and this could help our case. We are being rehabilitated in a good way."

VH1's new Rock Docs series kicks off this weekend with part one of the two-part NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell

The series looks at New York City in 1977 -- the year of the great blackout, the Son of Sam killings, the beginnings of hip-hop culture and punk rock at CBGB. The story is told by those who were there -- among them KRS-One, Afrika Bambaattaa, Richard Hell, Tommy Ramone, Annie Sprinkle and Geraldo Rivera (yes, Geraldo Rivera).

Check out these clips from the documentary...

The Ramones bring together punks and criminals:

NY77: Punks and Criminals

In this bonus story from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007) the Ramones artistic director Arturo Vega explains how the Lower East Side's punk culture helped some potential criminals realize that it was cooler to hang out with the Ramones than to rob them.

Al Goldstein and Geraldo Rivera remember NYC's first open swingers' club, Plato's Retreat:

NY77: Plato's Retreat

Television - This excerpt from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007) recalls the first public swingers club, Plato's Retreat.

How the NYC blackout (and ensuing looting) helped give birth to street DJs and hip hop crews in need of equipment:

NY77: Blackout!

This excerpt from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007) shows how New Yorkers coped with the great blackout in July 1977. Musicians, celebrities and politicians remember the fear, the looting and the unexpected benefit to hip hop.

An animated recounting of an early rap battle:

NY77: The Rap Battle

In this excerpt from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY 77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007), a memorable rap battle between Grandmaster Caz-DJ Disco Wiz and Afrika Bambaataa is recounted in classic comic book style by the artist Jim Rugg.

It's being reported that popular comic book artist and North Carolina resident Mike Wieringo died of a sudden heart attack Sunday. He was 44 years old.

Wieringo, who was best known for his work on DC Comics' The Flash and Marvel's The Fantastic Four, has often been described by fans and fellow creators as one of the nicest guys in comics. Friends like comics writer Warren Ellis are expressing shock and regret at the news. A few pieces have mentioned that Wieringo was a vegetarian, not a hard living type and thought to be in great shape, which makes the news of his early death that much more shocking.

A few years ago I met Wieringo at a small local convention. Strangely, a lot of people seemed not to know who he was and he sat quietly at a table with his books displayed, sketching contentedly. I walked up and began chatting with him, telling him I'd really enjoyed his work on The Flash and Spider-Man. Even if you're just famous among comics geeks this kind of thing can get kind of tiring, and I've seen many artists and writers sort of smile politely at that kind of thing and wait for you to buy something or go away. But Wieringo seemed to really enjoy the praise and asked if I wanted to pull up a chair and chat. We talked about what the comics creation process is like (how much liberty do you take with a script, is it important to know and like the writer?), what the business is like (is it nearly impossible to make a living as a comics artist until you're in that very top tier) some of his favorite comics and mine.

There are plenty of times when you meet someone whose work you've enjoyed and realize too late that he/she is a complete jerk. This can sort of ruin their work for you -- which is the worst. Wieringo was a great antidote to that -- a terrific artist and a terrific guy.

Here is a Newsarama interview with Wieringo.

Here is his Wikipedia entry.

Here is his official webpage, to which he posted blog entries and sketches almost every day (high traffic today, may be down just now).

Reader Fred Gregory sends a link to this YouTube video in which a young woman receives her first iPhone bill from AT&T -- all 300 pages of it.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. It's been a little nuts on the job.

But more of you are e-mailing me and commenting lately -- and that's leading to more and different kinds of posts.

Reader Kim e-mailed to say she enjoyed the post on Chuck Taylors -- and to point out that you can often get cheap Chucks at Overstock.com (though it seems easier if you're a woman, have small feet or both).

She also pointed to the knock off Chucks at Old Navy's website for about half the price of the genuine article.

This I was happy about. Bought some knock off Chucks from the Old Navy store where a fellow N&R staffer works part-time about eight months ago. They've since become some of my favorite shoes. They're low-tops, but I swear they're actually more durable than the Chucks I had in high school and, on the site right now, they come in some cool colors and styles. There are also some Vans-style slip-ons.

I'm totally behind knock-offs as long as they're good knock-offs.

Twenty-five years ago, on Aug. 17, 1982, ABBA's "The Visitors" became the very first CD to be released commercially. Which means that CDs have been around nearly as long as I have, even though I can remember having cassettes until middle school. The first CD I ever saw was my friend's copy of Green Day's "Dookie," and the first CD I ever owned was Nirvana's "Nevermind," followed quickly by the soundtrack to "The Bodyguard" and Credence Clearwater Revival's greatest hits.

They've had a good run, but how long before they become obsolete? I wonder if my children will wrinkle their noses at my CDs, the way I used to laugh at my parents' 8-tracks and records. Instead of the click-clack sound of flipping through CDs at the music store, will they only hear the clicking of a mouse as they download songs?

Some other interesting facts about CDs:

-- The original disc was meant to hold an hour of audio. It was extended to the odd measure of 74 minutes, however, to make room for Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
-- The first CD players cost as much as $2,000, when adjusted for inflation.
-- More than 200 billion CDs have been sold since 1982.

Side note: I found this part of the BBC article interesting:

"Piet Kramer, who was a member of the optical group at Philips during the disc's development, said: "When Philips teamed up with Sony to develop the CD, our first target was to win over the world for the CD.

"We did this by collaborating openly to agree on a new standard. For Philips, this open innovation was a new approach and it paid off."

Seems as if philosophies have changed a bit since then. I wish the DVD companies would collaborate on a new standard, instead of making me choose between BluRay and HD-DVDs.

Joe posted some new Batman pics a couple weeks ago. Now Perez has some more up that I haven't seen before. I was skeptical of Heath Ledger at first, but I've slowly come to think that he might be pretty awesome as the Joker.

Couple more here.

A few strange and wonderful comic-booky things this week:

- The movie version of Alan Moore's seminal WATCHMEN now has an official Warner Brothers movie site, complete with production blog and cast list. It's happening...

- Edward Norton is not only playing The Incredible Hulk in the new movie (which is rebooting the character and hoping to wash the taste of the last one out of our mouths) -- he also pitched in on the script. Also, TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno, who is now a Los Angeles Reserve Deputy Sheriff, has apparently filmed a cameo for the film.

- Over at Blender, alt-country rocker Ryan Adams (whose new album is doing a lot better than I predicted) gives what should be some obvious advice about starting a comic book collection. Kids -- take it from me, a guy who, years into trying to purge his house of comics, still has boxes of them: if you're not hooked, don't start.

- Director John Singleton is attached to films about two of Marvel Comics' most prominent black characters - The Black Panther and Luke Cage. Singleton isn't talking about which will be produced first, but he does throw out some ideas about casting here. I'd personally be against model Tyrese Gibson as Luke Cage. I'm sure he has the physique but I'm not sure he has the chops. I'd go with Wesley Snipes -- no, I don't care that he already played Blade.

This may be my favorite book cover of all time:

Here's how the book got its name, from the book description on Amazon.com:

From Roger's review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (0 stars): "The movie created a spot of controversy in February 2005. According to a story by Larry Carroll of MTV News, Rob Schneider took offense when Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times listed this year's Best Picture nominees and wrote that they were 'ignored, unloved, and turned down flat by most of the same studios that . . . bankroll hundreds of sequels, including a follow-up to Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, a film that was sadly overlooked at Oscar time because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic.'

"Schneider was nominated for a 2000 Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor, but lost to Jar-Jar Binks. But Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo while passing on the opportunity to participate in Million Dollar Baby, Ray, The Aviator, Sideways, and Finding Neverland. As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."

And the winner is...R. Kelly's Trapped In The Closet, 10 new installments of which are airing on IFC.

There are, of course, many people who are enjoying this steaming pile of...celluloid...ironically. The hipster kid who interviews Kelly on the IFC site seems to be one of them. While this is sort of annoying (I mean...I've watched Plan 9 From Outer Space this way, but as far as I know Ed Wood did not urinate on any underage girls...or, at least, didn't tape himself doing it) I guess I can understand it. What I can't understand: people who actually watch this stuff sober and on its own merits.

It's been mocked in many places (my favorite may be on South Park) -- but it really sort of mocks itself.

But here's the thing...the number of black people who I know who really, really like this makes me wonder if I'm dismissive of this because it's a self-described "hip-hopera," a product of black American culture to which I can't really relate. I like hip-hop...but mostly white college student hip-hop. The Roots. The Beastie Boys. A Tribe Called Quest. Public Enemy. The occasional Jay-Z single, when I can get past the obsessive boasting about money, bling and hos.

I'd feel worse about having no use for 90% of all rap music and hip-hop culture if I hadn't heard Chuck D say much the same thing during a speech at Guilford College a few years ago. Still...looking at Kelly making millions on something this bad feels all the worse because I can't see how anyone could enjoy it.

Wow.

Apparently the first season of Friday Night Lights on DVD comes with a money-back-guarantee that you'll enjoy the show.

Who wants to bet they're not going to do this with Studio 60 or John From Cincinnati?