I began this site for two reasons — to share bloggings with a girl who urged me to join Wordpess, and to post news about Christopher Nolan's Batman movies starring Christian Bale as Batman.

The girl is now who-knows-where and can stay there, but Nolan and Bale haven't let me down yet.

And yet …

Despite the gargantuan success of The Dark Knight, news about another Nolan/Bale Bat-outing has been as elusive as Bruce Wayne in the pages of DC Comics these days. (But that's an essay for another time.)

That's slowly beginning to change.

Deadline Hollywood reported yesterday that the television series Flash Forward is losing its showrunner, David Goyer, who crafted the stories for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight with director Nolan.

(Christopher's brother, Jonathan, joined them on The Dark Knight.)

And amid all the other reporting came this innocent little sentence:

Of course, Goyer's feature career is really heating up, since he co-wrote Batman Begins, and penned the story for The Dark Knight, and is now writing the third Batman installment with Chris Nolan's brother Jonah.

Author Nikki Finke tends to stay way in the know, and she wouldn't toss out something like that if she didn't know what she was talking about.

And don't forget that my friend Bill "Jett" Ramey let us in on that secret a full year ago.

Jett will tell you himself that he knows more about the progress of the next Batman movie than he can say, but he's keeping it close to the chest because of his very same senses of honor and integrity that keep me checking out Batman on Film every day. Being a contributor (of comic book reviews) to B.O.F. has been a massive honor, and when the time comes for the official announcement, you can bet that Jett will be reporting it with more vigor than any other news source around.

So what's been taking so long?

Nolan is now putting the finishing touches on his science fiction epic, Inception, which opens July 16. For more information about the movie, I urge you to read this excellent interview he did with Hero Complex. And once you've done that, check out the amazing trailer on Yahoo.

We probably won't get official word about the Batman movie until Inception arrives this summer.

Until then, let's keep our eyes on Batman on Film. Just in case.

The woods behind my parents' house in Elizabeth, Indiana, were home to some of the most ridiculous superhero movies that never happened, all of them starring me, and all of them made up by me as I went along.

I spent lots of time zipping between trees in my Captain America Underoos, slinging around a garbage can lid as my shield. So I'm pretty excited about the prospects for Marvel's Captain America movie, even though I think The First Avenger: Captain America is one of the worst movie titles I've ever heard. Just call it Captain America, for crying out loud.

Anyway, director Joe Johnston has been talking a lot about the movie lately, and here are some of the things he's saying:

He told HitFix that the villain will indeed be the Red Skull, and that filming would take place in the United Kingdom since most of the movie occurs during World War II.

Hero Complex reports some more of Johnston's musings, including the evolution of Cap's costume throughout the film. It sounds like he'll be relegated to the USO circuit by commanders too terrified to waste their only super soldier in combat, but that after he goes off on his own, he'll come around to seeing the uniform as a rallying symbol of unity and leadership. One particularly interesting quote:

In the first USO sequences, the frustrated patriot will be wearing a version that is closer to the classic Jack Kirby-designed costume, but then later as the super-soldier hits the war zone he will be wearing a sturdier, more muted version that he makes himself that is more like battle togs. The stripes across his mid-section, for instance, will be straps, not colored fabric.

Sounds like they're going for a more realistic approach (as Nolan did with Batman), but the film's "USO then AWOL" approach should allow for both the classic "comic booky" costume and a battlefield version a little more suitable for film.

Regarding casting:

And who will wear the costume and carry the shield? "Well, we're testing five or six guys," Johnston said. "The youngest is 23, the oldest is 32. Most of the guys in the war are just kids, 18 or 19, but we want to go a little bit older. We have to have somebody locked in before I leave March 1 for London."

I hope they go older, or at least get someone who can play older. We shall see. And soon, from the sound of it.

Meanwhile, if you can't wait until the film's July 22, 2011 release date for some Captain America action, check out Hulu for the once-rare 1990 version.

(I won't be satisfied until they find the old Captain America TV movies from the late 1970s starring Reb Brown as Cap. You know, the ones with the giant helmet and the shield that was red, white, and … clear?)

So says director Joe Johnston to SCI FI Wire:

"We need to cast it soon," Johnston said. "We have a very short list, but we're still juggling actors here. I'd say within the next couple of weeks we'll have ourselves a Captain America, I hope."

(Shooting begins at the end of June for release on July 22, 2011.)

They need to cast someone who's entirely believable as a leader of men. And they need to cast someone whose screen presence can match that of our Iron Man, Robert Downey, Jr., when the Avengers movie eventually happens.

Mr. Johnston's newest film, The Wolfman, opens February 12. For a list of his very impressive film credits, click here.

My reviews of the January issues of the three monthly Batman titles I do for Bill "Jett" Ramey, the hardest working Batman fan on this or any other planet:

Review: Detective Comics #861

Review: Gotham City Sirens #8

Review: Streets of Gotham #8

I'm sort of in love with Batwoman.

An owl on my car.

In my building's parking lot.

On busy Bardstown.

Let's see how many years it is before I do another of these.

Alexander Nevsky — the actor, author, producer, and bodybuilder with whom my writing partner Kevin Rice and I are scripting what's going to be one hell of a Hercules movie — is beginning his 2010 as busy as always.

Yesterday he began rehearsals for his upcoming stint on the Russian version of Dancing with the Stars, and he's been in Russia for months doing publicity for his own reality show and his best-selling book on women's fitness.

Here's video of Alexander talking about his book on Good Morning Russia, and you can read articles (with photos) about his book tour here, here, and here.

He also recently filmed a role as a Russian journalist in the upcoming film Somewhere by director Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation).

Alexander will be back in the United States in a couple of weeks to attend the Golden Globes, and we just have might have some Hercules news to report.

Stay tuned!

I knew that my lovely and talented cousin Alissa Nutting's debut collection of short stories, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, was on its way from Starcherone Books this year.

I can't wait.

What I seem to have regrettably missed, however, is that Starcherone featured Alissa not once but twice on its blog in August.

Click here and here to read all about the brilliant work she's got in the oven.

I'm so proud of you, Alissa! You've been a great friend and confidante (who listens and gives great advice over Mexican food), and I can't wait to see your wicked wits and ways with words splashed across printed pages.

I'll post more details about Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, including its release date, as soon as I've got them.

And I'm sure I can arrange an interview with the author when the time comes.

In the early minutes of 2009, I said to myself, with great humility and terrible exhaustion, "At least this year won't be as awful as 2008."

The universe heard me and apparently mistook my quiet little plea for some kind of brazen challenge or dare, because 2009 began badly and progressively found new and increasingly inventive means of dishing out cruelty. I'm glad it's over, and I'm glad it's gone.

So, 2010, I'm the one who's challenging you to be better. I'll certainly be doing my part. Can you rise to the challenge?

Hopefully I'll have some Hercules news I can share with you in the near future — it's going to be awesome. My writing partner Kevin Rice and I are working on some other things, too, that I can't tell you about until I can. But it's all good stuff.

Sometime this week I'll try to do Top 10 lists for the music and movies of 2009. Or maybe not. I don't know. One of my resolutions for 2010 is to spend less time in front of a computer, and if the ghost town this blog became in 2009 is any indication, it shouldn't be that difficult a goal to accomplish.

Bad things (and people) that happened in the last two years aside, the good people in my life continue to remind me constantly that we've all got a lot to be thankful for.

In fact, let's listen to our good friend Glen Phillips sing a song about it.

Here's to your amazing 2010, and to mine.

Onward and upward!

I'd once again like to thank Bill "Jett" Ramey, the hardest working Batman fan on the planet, for giving me the gig of reviewing three of DC's monthly Batman titles for his website, Batman on Film.

Here are my December reviews for the three titles I'm assigned:

Review: Detective Comics #860

Review: Gotham City Sirens #7

Review: Streets of Gotham #7

I think Detective is the best comic book on the market today, and that Batwoman is currently the most interesting (and most certainly hottest) character out there. Check it out!

Gaaaaaaaah.

Every day I think of 11 things I'd like to write about on here, but I'm so busy writing things everywhere else that I never get around to it, which makes me even sadder that what I'm finally writing about is this.

Brittany Murphy died today at the age of 32. She was beautiful and wonderful, with a smile as engaging and as mesmerizing as her talent. I haven't seen nearly everything she was in, but I loved her in everything I did.

And I always thought she'd have made an amazing Harley Quinn in a Batman movie.

As much as I enjoyed seeing her on film, my favorite performance was one that came from behind the camera. No matter how busy the rest of her career became, she always made time to record her lines as the voice of Hank's sweet, endearingly naive niece, Luanne Platter, on King of the Hill.

She was truly something special, and that's forever.