Christian Bale's Batman is perched atop a skyscraper, looking over a dark and foggy skyline pierced by glittering lights, preparing for a dive to the gritty streets below.
But when he alights, he won't find the gargoyle-infested, bricks-and-mortar city that
Washington Irving first coined "Gotham." He won't battle the Joker on wet cobblestones, or loom in the shadows of a dominant spire that evokes the Empire State building.
Heath Ledger isn't the only scene-stealer in "
The Dark Knight" In the newest incarnation of the movie franchise, the mythical Gotham City long assumed to be an allegorical Big Apple is unmistakably based on Chicago.
Not that a move to the Midwest is such a stretch. Neal Adams, who has illustrated Batman for DC Comics since the 1970s, says he's always thought of Chicago, with its 1940s mobster history and miles of dark alleys, as the basis for Gotham City.
"Chicago has had a reputation for a certain kind of criminality," says Adams, who lives in New York. "Batman is in this kind of corrupt city and trying to turn it back into a better place. One of the things about Chicago is Chicago has alleys (which are virtually nonexistent in New York). Back alleys, that's where Batman fights all the bad guys."
But Chicago's back-of-the-building ethos isn't the only reason the "Dark Knight" filmmakers chose to focus on the Second City's style.
"I think the architecture of the city is really brilliant, fantastic," said director
Christopher Nolan, as he strolled the red carpet while heading into Chicago's premiere of the film last week. "That gave us an incredible amount of variety that's used as the background for the film."
Nolan, who once lived in Chicago, spent three weeks here shooting the previous film, "Batman Begins." For "The Dark Knight," he expanded that time to three months.
And by no means did his cameras shy from the buildings and landmarks, elevated trains and underground streets that easily identify the Windy City: He flipped a semi-truck on LaSalle Street. He blew up abandoned buildings on the city's west side. Cameras pan above the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago River, the Magnificent Mile.
Chicago's modern feel lent itself well to Gotham City, says James McAllister, the key location manager for "The Dark Knight."
"Everywhere you look is a good angle," McAllister says. "Visually it's that look like you would see in the comic books. You can see all the way down the street and you can turn a corner and you're under the El or in an alley that's dark."
That's not to say the latest filmmakers abandoned New York all together.
In Nolan's "Batman Begins," Gotham City's layout is more similar to New York's, McAllister says. "There's all these different boroughs, with rivers to interconnect. I think it's hard to get away from that, because Gotham is based on New York," he said.
And in a wide shot from the early part of Nolan's first "Batman" movie, Gotham appears more like a coastal harbor than a lakeside city, its every square inch bristling with tall buildings, much like in New York.
Gotham is "New York from 14th Street down, the older buildings, more brick-and-mortar as opposed to steel-and-glass," says Paul Levitz, the president and publisher of DC Comics, which has held onto the Batman franchise since the hero's debut in the 1940s.
According to the Gotham Center for New York City History, Irving first referred to New York City as Gotham in the 19th century. A history of early New York, by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, is starkly titled "Gotham." In
Tim Burton's 1989 classic "Batman," newspaper reporters pore over a map that looks like Manhattan;
Jack Nicholson's Joker trashes artwork at the "Fuggenheim," and the mayor is a dead ringer for
Ed Koch.
Still, Levitz says Batman's Gotham has evolved through the decades as different writers and illustrators and now filmmakers have taken on the series.
"Each guy adds their own vision," Levitz says. "That's the fun of comics, rebuilding a city each time."
But that does little to quell the debate over which metropolis is the real Gotham City.
Life-long New Yorker Gerry Gladstone, who is an owner at Midtown Comics in Times Square, says the first writers and illustrators of the Batman comics worked in New York and used the city for inspiration.
"Their offices were in Times Square and that's where these stories came from," Gladstone says. "Gotham has always been a stand-in for the seedier side of New York City."
Standing in front of the Chicago Board of Trade (the inspiration for Wayne Manor in the latest Batman movie) wearing his yellow, trading-floor jacket, Wayne Brown, 45, of Chicago, says his city has always been the model for Gotham.
"Our buildings, in a dark setting, would make it a gloomy, gloomy downtown," Brown says. "When we read the cartoons we didn't see any Twin Towers or Empire State Building. They're always showing the Board of Trade."
It's that pressure-cooker, street-smart sense that makes Chicago a real instead of manufactured Gotham, says Richard Moskal, director of the Chicago Film Office.
"I think (Chicago) changed people's minds about what is Gotham in terms of the real sense ... and what it is fictionally," Moskal says.
Realism certainly is the calling card of "The Dark Knight." Unlike the previous "Batman" movies in which Gotham's streets are ever dark, often abandoned and shrouded in mist Nolan's cityscapes don't stray too far from a typical workday in Chicago, where office workers on lunch breaks dart in and out of cafes; businessmen roll suitcases and shake hands in front of City Hall; and long shadows crisscross the skyscraper canyon of LaSalle St. on a bright summer day.
"We make (Chicago) look a lot grittier through the camera in the story," says
Gary Oldman, who plays Lt.
James Gordon, "but I think initially there were artists' impressions of cities, and they take a skyscraper from here and a skyscraper from there and a monorail from somewhere.
"And (Nolan) looked at this picture and he said, 'That's Chicago we don't need to make this up ... we can actually physically go and shoot in a city. It's Gotham.'"
A cold-blooded hit man heads to Bangkok to pull off four jobs, and winds up falling in love with a local girl and bonding with his errand boy.
It is the not-too-distant future. Thousands of satellites scan, observe and monitor our every move. Much of the planet is a war zone; the rest, a collection of wretched way stations, teeming megalopolises, and vast wastelands punctuated by areas left radioactive from nuclear meltdowns. It is a world made for hardened warriors, one of whom, a mercenary known only as Toorop, lives by a simple survivor’s code: kill or be killed. His latest assignment has him smuggling a young woman named Aurora from a convent in Kazakhstan to New York City. Toorop, his new young charge Aurora and Aurora’s guardian Sister Rebeka embark on a 6,000 mile journey that takes them from Eastern Europe, through a refugee camp in “New Russia,†across the Bering Straight in a pilfered submarine, then through the frozen tundra of Alaska and Canada, and finally to New York. Facing obstacles at every turn, Toorop, the killer for hire, is tested like never before, in ways he could never have imagined--as he comes to understand that he is the custodian of the only hope for the future of mankind. For the first time in his life, Toorop has to make a choice: to make a difference or walk away and save himself. Too bad it came on the day he died.
failed drummer is given a second chance at fame. Robert "Fish" Fishman is the extremely dedicated and astoundingly passionate drummer for the eighties hair band Vesuvius, who is living the rock n' roll dream until he is unceremoniously kicked out of the band. Twenty years after his rock star fantasies are destroyed, just when Fish has finally given up all hope, he hears that his nephew's high school rock band A.D.D. is looking for a new drummer. They reluctantly make him the newest member of the band, giving him a chance to reclaim the rock God throne he's always thought he deserved, and taking the young band along for the ride of their lives.
Shelley Darlington has lived at the Playboy mansion for the last nine years. She is Hef's favorite and acts like a den mother to the other girls. On her birthday, she is unceremoniously evicted from Hef's pad for 'being too old.' Homeless and without essential skills, Shelley wanders around L.A. until she finds a new job--the housemother at the most unpopular sorority on campus
Curtis Plummer -- a down-on-his-luck former high school football star -- turns his niece, Jasmine, into the quarterback of the local team, the Minden Browns, and gets his stride back when he becomes the team coach. With Curtis as their new leader and their pigtail-wearing star player, this team of misfits wins its way to the Pop Warner Super Bowl and the small city of M
Terminal Island, New York: 2020. Overcrowding in the U.S. penal system has reached a breaking point. Prisons have been turned over to a monolithic Weyland Corporation, which sees jails full of thugs as an opportunity for televised sport. Adrenalized inmates, a global audience hungry for violence and a spectacular, enclosed arena come together to form the 'Death Race', the world's biggest, most brutal sporting event. Five-time NASCAR champion Jensen Ames is a man who has become an expert at survival. After eight years of hard time, he has only six weeks before reuniting with his family. But when Weyland demands a driver to headline the big game, Ames is forced to submit. Donning the costume of mythical rider Frankenstein, the racer becomes an instant crowd favorite, an unequaled sporting superstar. His face hidden by a metallic black mask, one convict will be put through a brutal three day challenge, with the trophy being the ultimate prize: freedom. The only catch is that he must survive a gauntlet of the most vicious criminals in this post-industrial wasteland to claim it. Driving a monster car outfitted with machine guns, flamethrowers and grenade launchers, Ames must now kill or be killed to win the most treacherous spectator sport on Earth: 'Death Race'.
LOS ANGELES - The action comedy "Tropic Thunder" weathered a rush of new movies to remain No. 1 for a second-straight weekend with $16.1 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. 
Winslet's husband, Sam Mendes, directs the couple in ‘Revolutionary Road’ 
On the front lines of an intergalactic struggle between good and evil, fans young and old will join such favorite characters as Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padme Amidala, along with brand-new heroes like Anakin's padawan learner, Ahsoka. Sinister villains--led by Palpatine, Count Dooku and General Grievous--are poised to rule the galaxy. Stakes are high, and the fate of the Star Wars universe rests in the hands of the daring Jedi Knights. Their exploits lead to the action-packed battles and astonishing new revelations.
Lifelong friends embark on separate paths for their first year of college and the summer beyond, but remain in touch by sharing their experiences with each other as they always have--with honesty and humor. Discovering their individual strengths, fears, talents and capacity for love through the choices they make, they come to value more than ever the bond they share and the immeasurable power of their friendship.
By Hy Hollinger
Stoner epic keeps bringing the funny even when bullets start flying
Running Time:Unknown
25-year-old Wes was the most disaffected, cube-dwelling drone the planet had ever known. His boss chewed him out hourly, his girlfriend ignored him routinely and his life plodded on interminably. Everyone was certain this disengaged slacker would amount to nothing. There was little else for Wes to do but wile away the days and die in his slow, clock-punching rut. Until he met a woman named Fox. After his estranged father is murdered, the deadly sexy Fox recruits Wes into the Fraternity, a secret society that trains Wes to avenge his dad's death by unlocking his dormant powers. As she teaches him how to develop lightning-quick reflexes and phenomenal agility, Wes discovers this team lives by an ancient, unbreakable code: carry out the death orders given by fate itself. With wickedly brilliant tutors--including the Fraternity's enigmatic leader, Sloan--Wes grows to enjoy all the strength he ever wanted. But, slowly, he begins to realize there is more to his dangerous associates than meets the eye. And as he wavers between newfound heroism and vengeance, Wes will come to learn what no one could ever teach him: he alone controls his destiny
What's the Story ?
The makers of the new "X-Files" movie have done themselves a disservice in coming up with the elongated title, "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" Really, it just invites a whole bunch of bad jokes which, unfortunately, are justified.
Christian Bale's Batman is perched atop a skyscraper, looking over a dark and foggy skyline pierced by glittering lights, preparing for a dive to the gritty streets below.
1st Most Popular Movie
By Bob Tourtellotte 
By ERIN CARLSON, Associated Press Writer Thu Jul 10, 4:00 PM ET
A science professor's untraditional hypotheses have made him the laughing stock of the academic community. But on an expedition in Iceland, he and his nephew stumble upon a major discovery that launches them on a thrilling journey deep beneath the Earth's surface, where they travel through never-before-seen worlds and encounter a variety of unusual creatures.
By Simon Rabinovitch
The great thing about the movies is that our heroes never age. We can keep going back to Chaplin, Newman, or Hepburn, and with the exception of some dated slang, they remain as fresh as the day they stepped foot in front of the camera. 
The summer movie season arrives with a clang as Iron Man, a second-tier superhero from the mighty Marvel Comics universe, receives a first-rate film adaptation courtesy of director Jon Favreau (Elf, Zathura) and his perfectly-cast leading man, Robert Downey, Jr.
