The Dark Knight Rises

Warning: Spoiler Alert. Don't read any further if you haven't seen the movie yet. 

So I was able to watch the third installment of the Christian Bale Batman franchise and I have to say that they ended this trilogy quite nicely. Anne Hathaway's performance even surprised me. She wasn't bad at all.

I was even caught off-guard by the twist in the end, Marion Cotillard, being Ra's al Ghul's daughter surprised me. I thought Bane was the mastermind behind everything happening in Gotham. Why he had so much influence and control over his army was barely explained though. Is the audience supposed to assume that his minions are former league of shadow operatives?

If you're after Batman tech, I'm afraid this movie is lacking. Except for the "bat" hovering vehicle, and an EMP gun, I it seems there isn't any new arsenal we haven't seen.

The airplane hijacking scene was the coolest stunt, in my opinion. It's just strange that Bane and the Scientist weren't immediately swung at a 45 degree angle the moment the weight of the hijacked plane was released.

And now for the "ending" questions.

Will Joseph Gordon-Levitt become the next Batman? Or will he become Nightwing? How will he continue operations if he has no wealth?

Is Bruce Wayne alive and living happily ever after with Selina Kyle, or was that merely Alfred's wishful thinking? Batman can't outrun a nuclear explosion. He's no techie like Lucius Fox and so he couldn't have fixed the auto-pilot on the hovering vehicle. And we still see a cut scene of him being inside the jet as he approached the sun-lit coast.

So what do you think? Let's hear your theories.

Google Maps 45 degrees

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Google Maps has a nifty feature not many are probably aware of, the 45 degree angle view. Not all locations have this feature enabled yet. Below is another sample location with this feature running. Wonder how soon it will take for all locations to be mapped out this way. Or will live streaming of all locations happen first?



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The Newsroom 2012

Since most of the usual TV shows we watch are on break, I decided to give The Newsroom a try. Most TV shows are police, lawyer or doctor-based dramas. The Newsroom might just be the beginning of a new type of TV show genre - the newscaster drama. (Although I still remember Murphy Brown and I don't know if she started the whole newscaster TV series.)

When I watched the first episode with my friends, they really enjoyed it. This show is really about witty dialogue since it doesn't have the action scenes of a crime show. It is mostly about real-time conflict resolution in the workplace, and a TV station newsroom apparently is one of the most stressful environments to work in. But the funny lines that the characters blurt out from time to time should allow the audience some break from that stress.

If you look at the Star Trek like photo of the cast above, you might be familiar with some of the actors and actresses. Emily Mortimer is familiar for playing Bruce Willis' love interest in the movie The Kid. Alison Pill was the drummer girl in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Dev Patel was the Slumdog Millionaire. And Olivia Munn will always be famous for The Attack of the Show. The producers and writers have put together a good set of characters/actors who complement each other and so far, after two episodes, we are still hooked.

Here's to the hope that this series will become and remain one of the best shows on TV for a long time.