Also, the fairly early cheapie Dark Star does a good job of evoking the mindfuck of staring into the black (in a black humored way).

Heh, love this movie. Best alien ever. Interestingly, one of the co-writers and actors was Dan O'Bannon (his character had all the interaction with the alien), who went on to co-write the original script that became Alien (though that was extensively re-worked by Walter Hill).

Also, does it need to be movies? Because a couple of the Firefly episodes really made that point - Bushwhacked, Our Mrs. Reynolds (for the ending), and Out of Gas being the main ones, but the first reavers sequence in the original Serenity gets some of that too.

Of course, they'll be a real movie for that soon, but probably not soon enough.

Time doesn't like Batman Begins.

Brett Ratner is taking over X3 after the departure of Matthew Vaughn. This plus the scuttlebutt on the preliminary script has me very, very worried.

They need to dump both the script and the director, and get Joss in. Oh, and maybe Halle too, if they're spring cleaning.

Batman Begins is kind of mixed so far on Rotten Tomatoes.

Well, 80% positive doesn't sound too bad.

Ebert and that other guy raved about it last night on their show. Ebert is supposed to be a comic book buff, no?

There are five reviews counted right now -- which means each new one coming in can sway the rating very heavily. Were there five when you looked, Jesse?

Yeah, there were five, and I had never heard of three of them, so I'm calling it 50/50 at this point.

I trust Empire more than either the Hollywood Reporter or Variety, so I'd say it looks pretty hopeful.

[eta: Empire liked Mr and Mrs Smith too.]