We’re really just less than four days away from the release of Dark Knight Rises, the thrilling conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The first installment, Batman Begins, breathed new life into the moribund film franchise, and the second installment, The Dark Knight transformed the late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker (Why so serious, indeed?) into a cultural meme.
Unless you weren’t in town last summer, or just weren’t paying much attention, a great deal of Dark Knight Rises uses Pittsburgh as a stand-in for Gotham City. Half the fun of watching this movie will rest in recognizing those familiar landmarks and landscapes transformed by Mr. Nolan’s unique vision and the special effects wizardry of the talented artists in his employ.
If you want to bone up on your Batman before the movie, I would point you to my list from last year containing what one humble reader considers essential Dark Knight reading. I’d like to take this moment to plug seeing the movie at the Carnegie Science Center. You’ll not only get the movie in its full, Omnimax glory, but the Science Center might just be one of the coolest places to visit in the city.
No matter where you see it, this last Nolan Batman movie should provide us with quite a sendoff!
–Scott
Eleventh Stack 