We reported that The Joker got to the front page of the Offi­cial Dark Knight web­site, wreak­ing havoc with his red paint, we for­got to men­tion that the poster down­loads also got hit — whilst the main site has now returned to its for­mer state, here are the posters as they once stood, graffiti’d by The Joker:

Con­tribut­ing Source: IMPAwards

These images from the World Pre­mier of The Dark Knight on 68th Street and Broad­way in NYC, come via two sources — the glitzy posed shots with excel­lent light­ing were posted by Cin­e­mat­i­cal, whilst the can­did but super high res­o­lu­tion shots were taken by Flickr user czan­gle:

In the next few days reviews for The Dark Knight will be pour­ing in left right and cen­ter as the gen­eral pop­u­lous descend on the screen­ings. Ontop of our first round up, we have two more glow­ing reviews to share with you:

Film School Rejects, Neil Miller:

In sum­ma­tion, The Dark Knight is a rar­ity in Hol­ly­wood — a truly earnest adap­ta­tion that in many ways exceeds even the bril­liance of the work upon which it is based. It is a film that is on a grand scale with larger-than-life char­ac­ters, but also that is grounded by a plau­si­ble story and a very real envi­ron­ment. For the first time, a super­hero movie could have us believ­ing that this could all really hap­pen. And whether or not this film will change the way super­hero flicks are made in the future is unclear, but should more direc­tors choose to go the route of Christo­pher Nolan and make films that are as jar­ring, as epic and as expertly crafted as films, not just as adap­ta­tions of a comic medium, then I cer­tainly wouldn’t com­plain. For as much as The Dark Knight is not a per­fect film, it is cer­tainly pretty damn close.

IESB:

With a weighty run­ning time on this one you’d expect to feel it, but I have to tell you this doesn’t feel any­where near two and a half hours. It runs like clock work and keeps things boil­ing even between the action. I was wor­ried when I heard about all the peo­ple in this thing and all the plot points get­ting cov­ered. Spider-Man 3 couldn’t keep all its balls in the air and it had far less to jug­gle. But noth­ing is left to waste or shoe horned in to this story it flows effort­lessly and enter­tains on a mas­sive scale. Much like the Joker him­self it doesn’t just threaten to do some­thing it deliv­ers on all counts.

Not just another comic book film this is high art wrapped in one.

AICN — Quint:

Mark my words: Ledger will be nom­i­nated, Wally Pfis­ter will be nom­i­nated, Chris Nolan will be nom­i­nated for direc­tion, Jonathan and Chris Nolan for script and if the movie Gods are feel­ing kind early next year we might even see a Best Pic­ture nom.

It really is that good. I am already giddy about see­ing it again in 15 hours

Cinematical’s James Roc­chi:

After critic David Denby sav­aged one of his Bat­man films, noted hack Joel Schu­macher defended the idi­otic excess of Bat­man and Robin and Bat­man For­ever by ask­ing “Well, it’s based on a comic book; what did he expect, Long Day’s Jour­ney into Gotham?” What Shu­macher did not under­stand — and that Nolan, thank­fully, does — is that while any Bat­man film is by def­i­n­i­tion based on a comic book, that film can still have actual drama, actual char­ac­ters, and some­thing to say beyond Biff! Bam! Pow! action and sim­plis­tic camp. The Dark Knight may be based on a comic book, but it’s a real movie made by real tal­ents — excit­ing, engag­ing, gor­geously crafted and the­mat­i­cally rich.

French Con­nec­tion have ranged 7 styl­ish new Dark Knight/Joker related t-shirts, I par­tic­u­larly like the first one, except that fad­dish “faded t-shirt” look that seems to be in at the moment. If I order it now it might arrive in time for the IMAX screen­ings in Lon­don next thurs­day (any other Brits going to that?)

Thanks JP Gainey

Amongst the Dark Knight pre­mier videos, a slew of video inter­views with the cast and crew have popped up, much to our delight. This embed­ded 20 video playlist also fea­tures Gary Old­man on the Conan O’Brien show and The View.

Many thanks to the YouTube user fal­co­nun­der­ground that has been stay­ing on top of these as best possible.

Wow, I just can’t stop post­ing videos today. I’ve already pro­vided some video high­lights of Chris­t­ian Bale on the “Black car­pet” at the pre­mier, how­ever enough videos have popped up for me to make a ded­i­cated post — please find below an 18 video playlist of Dark Knight pre­mier videos!

The videos fea­ture Aaron Eck­hart, Chris­t­ian Bale, Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal inter­views amongst oth­ers, as well as tele­vi­sion stu­dio fea­tures from Fox, the BBC and Asso­ci­ated Press:

It seems like this is the story many tele­vi­sion sta­tions are pick­ing up and run­ning with, it’s a lit­tle bit early for us fans to deter­mine whether Heath should be con­sid­ered for an Oscar or not (with the excep­tion of those already lucky enough to have seen the movie), but the signs are cer­tainly encour­ag­ing — from what we have seen and heard and from what the crit­ics tell us. Below are a selec­tion of videos echo­ing the dis­tinct pos­si­bil­ity of a posthu­mous Oscar nom­i­na­tion — it would be the first win in thirty years (EDIT: Cor­rect­ing 30 years fact, thanks Nick):

Main­stream television/video fea­tures cov­er­ing The Dark Knight/Batman/Heath Ledger are pop­ping up all over the place as we approach the much antic­i­pated released of the movie. Here’s a new fea­ture to quickly get your teeth into, by ReelzChannel: