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Batman Begins was really good wasn't it? A comic book film that includes nasty drug induced hallucinations, scary Cillian Murphy and a Dawn Of The Dead homage has to have something going for it. Well with the sequel, The Dark Knight, it looks like they are setting the dark-o-meter to the most disturbing setting.

This is supposed to be a picture of Heath Ledger as The Joker, doesn't look all that amused does he? Check the scars. Oooh, nasty. This may not be genuine but it was revealed by some sort of viral marketing web site that I am not quite sad enough to have visited (or understand). If it is genuine then it looks like Christopher Nolan is taking the Batman films in a direction that you would have to describe as "unpleasant".

I've also read that a major reference for the Joker in this film for the director and actor is Alex from A Clockwork Orange. If so, I think it is fair to expect a slightly more menacing and rounded character than Arnie's portrayal of that criminal mastermind with a flair for side-splitting puns, Mr Freeze; "You are not sending me to de cooler!", how we laughed!

I had a chance to go and see this crazy looking anime flick during the flatpack festival in Birmingham. Being in a period of moping at the time, I didn't bother and now I'm gutted as I have no idea when it is going to be properly released in the UK (if at all).

The plot concerns a newly invented device that allows psychotherapists to enter their patients dreams to sort out any unpleasantness. One of the devices is stolen for nefarious reasons and, if the trailer is any indication, everything goes completely postal. The images on display include salarymen jumping off skyscrapers, speeding mermaids, giant dolls being blown up and all sorts of reality warping strangeness and nastiness, seemingly has the potential to make the fairy tale-on-mushrooms Spirited Away look like a particularly dull episode of Heartbeat.

More details on the web site, but no release dates for the UK. Sony Pictures Classic: Sort it out, you cocks.

We watched the trailer for "Hot Fuzz" just the other day, and I really hope they've saved all the jokes for the film. 'Cos the trailer was a bit dull.

Not like the "The Simpsons Movie" trailer, which had me still crying with laughter five minutes later. It's trailer number 2 you want, by the way...

As part of the weekends Flatpack festival I went to the Sunday night screening of Science of Sleep (which was well worth going to) and was lucky enough to also catch Everything Will Be OK, a short animated film by Don Hertzfeldt. This was 17 minutes of a stickman called Bill pondering the seeming meaningless of his life as he gradually sinks into somekind of mental illness. It was great; quirky and funny at the start before becoming disquieting and disturbing (but still a bit funny) as it progressed.

Knowing nothing about Don Hertzfeldt or his company Bitter Films, I got on the internet at work today and had a bit of a dig round. Looks like Everything Will Be OK could be up for an Oscar. You can get hold of a load of Don's films via a DVD that you can order from the Bitter films web site. If you want a taster, check out Rejected (which you can watch here although it is a touch shonky), an earlier film documenting the problems he encountered while trying to fulfill some commercial commissions and the chaos that his breakdown brought upon his creations. Funny, technically brilliant and very pointed indeed.

Trailer for the new Danny Boyle/Alex Garland/Cillian Murphy collaboration has appeared on the internet somehow, via a russian web site or something. You can check it out here. The music is from Clint Mansell's soundtrack for Requiem For A Dream, I think so anyway.

Seeing as it is about the sun dying I didn't think it was going to be a knockabout comedy and the trailer seems to support my suspicions. The shockingly lazy generalisation that I am going for is : 2001 meets Event Horizon meets The Towering Inferno. Still 28 Days Later was really good so hopefully this will be too.

There's a web site with shedloads of info at www.sunshinedna.com.

Every so often we pop over to Digbeth to have our retinas boiled by the boys and girls from 7 inch cinema showing odd films from the archives and crazy new shorts.

It's always blummin good fun, and we'd hug them all drunkenly if we weren't so uptight and damned heterosexual.

Last time we were treated to a performance by classic British eccentrics the ZX Spectrum Orchestra, whose "Red Square" animation apparently took one of the Clives 9 months to complete ("You could've had a baby" piped up someone in the crowd at the Rainbow). Have a gander at all that sort of thing over at Youtube.

With that in mind, we can fully recommend popping to see them at the ICA in Larrhndahhhhn on the 8th January, where ZX Spectrum Orchestra and evil noisy types Black Galaxy will also be caning the eardrums of you soft southerners. We're just hoping that they all don't fuck off to London permanently.

Next up for us provincial Midland types, the Flatpack festival runs between 1st - 4th Feb next year, across arts venues in Birmingham, with lots of films and happenings. Hope there's nothing good on in the Sunflower Lounge, we're not allowed in there for some reason, probably 'cos we're too nice.

Also, in the final thing to be pinched from their newsletter - we can fully recommend the inaugural 7 inch DVD, full of fun stuff, including the hardcore 8-bit action of "Red Square" and the painfully great "Butterface": that's a still from it above. Makes us well up just thinking about it.

Update: Tuesday 8th Jan

Whups : 7 inch cinema is actually Ian and Pip, rather than just a bunch of sweaty blokes. There's some photos of the event, including ZX Spectrum Orchestra pushing buttons and one out of Black Galaxy skilfully relaxing by the bar over at Flickr.