Jean Strauss has written an interesting article on Juno as fiction:

 Ever since I watched it, the film Juno has kept me up nights. I know millions of people love this film about a pregnant teen and would skewer me for my concern about it. Yes, it’s witty and Juno is a unique character. But the film doesn’t portray important realities about adoption. Juno is a modern-day Pied Piper that could lure many young women to a far different reality than the one implied on screen.

More at the article: In Juno, adoption pain is left on cutting room floor

While walking down Newbury Street in Boston I came across Harvey Dent campaigners - students (or possibly actors) participating in the viral marketing for the new Batman movie.

I even got a sticker out of the deal:

For non Bat-fans out there, Harvey Dent is the real name of “Two-face,” a major villain in the Batman comics.  Dent starts as a lawyer fighting crime in Gotham, but half his face is later scarred by acid.  This results in a split personality, as well as a tendency to flip a coin to decide whether to be good or evil.  

You can see a toy based on his look in the new movie below, to get a sense of what the face above will look like by the end of the movie.

This post is probably unnecessary since The Golden Compass has already flopped, but this interview offers a useful critique of the film:

The film “The Golden Compass” isn’t simply about using fairy-tale magic to tell a good story, it corrupts the imagery of Lewis and Tolkien to undermine children’s faith in God and the Church, says Catholic author Pete Vere…

Collectively, the trilogy is known as “His Dark Materials,” a phrase taken from John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” This is appropriately titled in my opinion, since each book gets progressively darker — both in the intensity with which Pullman attacks the Catholic Church and the Judeo-Christian concept of God, as well as the stridency with which he promotes atheism.

Full Zenit interview about The Golden Compass here.

Superhero Hype links to leaked images of the new Batman movie, shown below.

Joker looks more Joker-y in these photos than he has before. Not as keen on the new Batsuit, though I imagine it’ll never have that much light on it in the film.

Superhero Hype links to Empire Online, which is slowly revealing their new cover with the Joker from the new Batman movie.

P.S. Empire Online has a pretty sweet web site. I would definitely subscribe if they offered subscriptions in the US.

P.P.S. UPDATE - the cover leaked early, so now all is revealed.  Interesting that the Internet is starting to get ahead of this excellent viral campaign.