Heath Ledger Joker bobblehead, presented without comment.

• Is Bruce Wayne, as John Carney wonders at Dealbreaker, “exactly the ‘better class of criminal’ that the Joker describes”? Spoileriffic analysis of Batman’s white-collar misdeeds follows.
• Mike Jones weighs in on the sale of indieWIRE to SnagFilms. “Despite the owners’ (which included myself, to a very small extent) desire to sell under the right terms, indieWIRE seemed destined to be independent.” Buuut…”The difficult truth about being independent is that it’s mostly for the young.”
• Glenn “Lists are Bullshit” Kenny offers 14 numbered thoughts on Mamma Mia! He begins by contemplating “the comingled semens of Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard, and Colin Firth competing in the fallopian tubes of Meryl Streep”; he ends with the admission, “I kind of want to have sex with Christine Baranski.”

The Dark Knight is hands down the best Batman movie yet, but has Christopher Nolan painted himself into a corner by using up the only viable Batman villains? Most of the Batman villains left are either too campy (the Penguin, the Ventriloquist), depend too much on flexible comic book logic (Clayface, Killer Croc), or are just watered-down versions of the Joker (the Riddler, the Mad Hatter).

Tim Burton’s Batman featured The Joker (Jack Nicholson) for good reason. The Clown Prince of Crime, always Batman’s most threatening foe, represents (among many things) an unwillingness to take human life seriously. In that moral void his vibrant personality explodes like a fireworks display of mania, menace, and eccentricity. The Joker is the calling card of chaos and evil at its sexiest. Batman isn’t the reason we watch Batman over and over again, the Joker is. Of course Michael Keaton brings gravitas to Batman, but let’s face it–as sweet as Batman is, he’s just not good company. Ever notice how passengers in the Batmobile feel like they’re at the end of a bad date? …Read more

Dark Knight Producer One: Hey, I heard the Bloggy-Sphere already loves the movie!

Dark Knight Producer Two: Yeah, real critics dig it too!

Dark Knight Producer One: Holy crap we are amazing. I mean we are really great.

Dark Knight Producer Two: Do you think there is any way we can screw this up?

Dark Knight Producer One: I don’t know, but it sure would be fun to try!

Dark Knight Producer Two: I’ll call Comcast.

Dark Knight Producer One: I’ll call Domino’s.

So Warner Brothers is planning to work a “tribute” to the late Heath Ledger into their New York premiere of The Dark Knight next month. Reports OK! Mag (yeah, I know):

The studio behind the Batman Begins sequel is planning a tribute to the late actor at the New York City premiere and has been working closely with the Ledger family to make it come to fruition.

If all goes according to plan, Heath’s family will be flown in from Australia for the event and Michelle Williams, his ex and mother of their 2-year-old daughter Matilda, will walk the red carpet as well.

So: will this amount to a trashy trotting-out of a widow to ensure maximum tabloid coverage of a tentpole from a studio that could really use a big hit to justify their recent swerve away from producing smaller films? Or is it actually a classy way of explicitly acknowledging the obvious cloud that hangs over this wannabe blockbuster? I took an informal poll via Twitter, and responses leaned towards the latter, but do use the comments to tell us what you think.

Last week, I wondered when the presidential campaign and Warner Brothers’ campaign for The Dark Knight would merge. Today, the political and the movie promotional have become fully intertwined, although on a much more local scale than I had originally predicted.

According to the Village Voice (via Gothamist), Queens Councilman Hiram Monserrate is lobbying to officially brand New York City with the nickname Gotham City in time for The Dark Knight’s July release. Apparently, Monserrate thinks associating his city with a fictional flying crime fighter and a deranged, make-up wearing lunatic will be good for tourism. “I see that as a marketing tool,” he told the Voice. “‘Come visit the real Gotham City,’ taking advantage of this movie which will be one of those gate-breaking, record-selling movies like it always is.” He then mumbled something about how how Christopher Nolan’s Chicago-shot movie will help New York’s “art community to strengthen its reconnection to being a Gotham City,” and also something else about how frappuccinos embody the spirit of Batman.

Check out the full crazy at the link, and then tell us: if a studio were to, uh, make it worthwhile for a city official to sponsor a crackpot resolution involving one of their films, would that be bribery, or just really, really good viral marketing?

The New York Post has an image of one of two Joker action figures based on Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the villain in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. One version will come armed with a rocket launcher (!), the other with a plain old utilitarian knife. Mattel plans to release the toys in May.

You knew this blog post was coming when Warner Brothers issued a say-nothing statement hours after Heath Ledger’s body was found last week. Now, a little over a week later, the scraps of news and speculative think pieces are flooding in; I read them and put the relevant information in a bullet-point list so that you wouldn’t have to.

• Kim Masters at Slate says The Dark Knight hasn’t entered the ADR phase yet, meaning that if any of Ledger’s lines need re-recording, they’ll have to use a voice double. More interesting is the fact that Warner Brothers is spinning The Merchandising Issue as a moral one: if they don’t sell authorized t-shirts with Heath Ledger’s face on them, “The pirates would come out of the woodwork, and then it’s completely out of control.”
• Chris Thilk says the third party companies who planned to partner with Warner Brothers on tie-ins (including Hersheys, who are planning some kind of Batman chocolate bar) were mostly not planning on using Joker imagery anyway, and will be able to continue with their capitalization plans unabated.
• Borys Kit passes along word that WhySoSerious.com has been appended with a black ribbon. The creepy Joker images and Ledger soundbites otherwise remain intact.
• Meanwhile, at Reel Pop, Steve Bryant reports that the “Why So Serious?” poster featuring an image of Ledger, which will likely be taken out of print, is selling for upwards of $70 on eBay. “Does the fact that I desperately want one make me soulless and insensitive?”

More on Ledger, The Dark Knight, etc etc:

The Dark Knight trailer: Chris’ Review

Heath Ledger Joker Pics

Heath Ledger Found Dead

Joker Prequel: The Nontroversy (the prequel itself no longer exists on YouTube, but here are two posts about what it was like).

Daniel Day-Lewis on Heath Ledger