On a cloudless January day in 1966, Los Angeles was such a dull small town that children could be alerted to something as small a skywriter at work. My parents must have been watching the Rose Bowl, as they did every New Year's Day. In those days we lived five miles or so away from the arena, on the heights over the Arroyo Seco. They saw the plane on TV buzzing the big game and urged me to go outside and have a look. Up in the sky, the small plane, low enough that you could hear the drone of the engine, spelled out the words in smoke B-A-T-M-A-N I-S C-O-M-I-N-G.

There are many ways to anticipate The Dark Knight. You can assemble a fake plot out of the numerous clips circulating the web, you can stitch together adorable bat-toys, or just rewatch Christopher Nolan's first entry in the Batman franchise. However, there's a lot more to this sprawling, nearly three hour rush of furious confrontations and haunting corruption. The greatest Batman stories emphasize the character's shadowy nature, and Nolan pulls from many of them to create the intensely moody aura of the latest film. You don't need to know anything about the character to enjoy the movie, but it certainly expands the experience to do some research -- and allows for a greater appreciation of the filmmaker's efforts to honor the nature of the character.

Here's a look at some antecedents to the current interpretation from the last two decades.

Lionsgate has now officially released the full-length trailer for The Spirit that Film School Rejects leaked last night. It's over on Yahoo! Movies in high definition, so even if you managed to catch the leaked version, it's worth checking out.

I have to say, this looks nothing like I thought it would. I wish I could say that was a good thing but ... wow. I am not feeling this at all. It's not the classic noir of Will Eisner's comics, it's not really a Sin City rip-off, it's just strange and creepy. The shots of the floating heads and the Spirit falling out of the woman's mouth remind me way too much of those eerie French safe sex ads.

I also have to complain about the emphasis placed on the femme fatales. I shrugged off the poster and the website; I accepted the excuse that to lure in the boys, you have to use the sexy girls. I also realize that just about all the actresses in the movie are bigger names than Gabriel Macht, who's the man behind the mask. But this is a full length trailer, and the Spirit himself is still persona non grata. When are we finally going to meet him?

I dig you Frank Miller, I really do, but I don't know if I can go down this road with you. I am hoping that this is just a really bad trailer, and the film is actually a nice visit to the land of neo-noir.

The Spirit opens December 25th, 2008.

Frank Miller's The Spirit just took a turn for the bizarre. The full trailer is up at Film School Rejects, at least for now (the teaser is here, permanently), and it makes the movie look downright avant-garde. The accompanying Rejects blog post calls the look and feel of the film "forced," and I have to agree, even as I recognize that it's not fair to make such a judgment from a promotional clip. But then the post also badmouths Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, at which point it lost me.

Anyhow, my fear is that The Spirit will prize style to the exclusion of a story that can be taken seriously -- something both Sin City and Sky Captain avoided doing. There really aren't any words for the costumes Samuel L. Jackson wears in the second half of the trailer, and I can't imagine I'll be able to watch him in the movie without giggling. On the other hand, misguided complaints about 300 not withstanding, I can't imagine Frank Miller ever generating anything to be giggled at.

Can anyone who's familiar with the source material -- a comic book not by Frank Miller, but by Will Eisner -- shed any light on what's going on in that trailer?

Last week, Collider spoke to producers Mark Canton, Gianni Nunnari, and Bernie Goldmann of 300, as well as director Zack Snyder, who all confirmed they were still hoping for a follow-up of some kind to 300. Today, Variety is reporting it as a done deal.

There are so many things wrong with this story that I just don't know where to begin. First, it wasn't cool of Variety to scoop Collider, and not credit them. But honestly, I can't believe the trades even ran this story. I mean no disrespect to Collider, as they ran it in the right context, but Variety is implying that this is on the verge of being filmed. Any 300 spin-off is entirely theoretical at this point, as it depends on a book that Frank Miller is only believed to be writing. No one even knows if he's jotted an outline down, let alone what it will be about. I watched Collider's interview with the aforementioned producers -- and with all due respect, when asked point blank if they had been in contact with Miller, they didn't answer. That doesn't confirm a solid project. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and suggest Miller hasn't given it a second thought since the movie came out.

I'll admit that I've never actually been seduced by a movie poster ... until now. Yahoo has debuted four of the standalone female Spirit posters, two of which (Eva Mendes as Sand Sarif and Scarlett Johansson as Silken Floss) we've already seen. Now, as pictured above, we also get to check out Jaime King as Lorelei Rox (and, yes, she definitely rox) and Sarah Paulson as Ellen Dolan. Oh, but that's not even the best part -- when you head on over to Yahoo and move your cursor over the different posters, you get to hear each girl repeat the line scrolled across her face. Oh yes. It's pretty cool ... and pretty hot.

In addition to the talking posters, director Frank Miller has gone live with another blog post. In it, he talks about CGI and the role it plays in the industry, as well how it fits into The Spirit. Working with Stu Maschwitz, Miller says, "Stu Maschwitz, CGI wizard, helped me understand this. Of all people. Sure, Stu had the entire CGI arsenal at his disposal – but he insisted that THE SPIRIT be true to its soul. Even when I wanted to go for an impossible, across-the-city camera move, he balked, saying it would "look digital. And Stu wouldn't let one damn character turn into a "bendie" or digital in any way. Hence my favorite shot – the Spirit leaps onto a water tower, and stumbles, just for a moment. Pure Eisner." I'm diggin' this one so far, and look forward to seeing a lot more of it at Comic Con later this summer.

The Spirit hits theaters on December 25.

Frank Miller is just blogging like crazy these days. Which is great -- I wish everybody I ever wrote about had a blog, because it would make everything ten times easier and more interesting. No conjecture. Straight from the horse's mouth!

Today, Miller addressed the concerns and criticism directed at the first teaser for The Spirit, mainly centered on its resemblance to the eye-popping Sin City. "It only resembles Sin City in that I am its director, and, well, yes, I have my ways and my proclivities .... No, Sin City, that one's my own baby, folks, and it looks the way it does for its own reasons. The Spirit is, and will always be, Eisner's Spirit .... To drive the point home, The Spirit , despite any accidental impression left by that kickass teaser-trailer, is a full-color movie. Sin City - and I hope to make of it a movie trilogy all its own, come Hell and high water - is, visually, a playhouse for black and white."

This isn't really earth-shattering news on The Spirit, but it is an interesting item nonetheless. Frank Miller has written a blog for Spike all about his experiences at New York Comic Con. (And if you missed it, which I did, he also reminisces fondly about his rocky relationship with Will Eisner over on the movie's official site.)

Miller writes all about his love for New York, admiration for a comic convention that is rivaling San Diego ("San Diego -- New York's hot on your ass!"), and the excitement of debuting the teaser trailer. "It was with provincial pleasure that I got to introduce The Spirit teaser trailer in the city that so wonderfully inspired Will Eisner, and inspires me like a son of a bitch today. It was, to say the least, the perfect setting."

He continues, "The Spirit movie is a love letter to New York, and here we were: Deborah Del Prete, my producer and a behind-the-scenes warrior without whom the movie would've been unachievable, me, Eva Mendes, who brought Sand Saref to unforgettable life, and Mike Uslan, the man who held tight to the license, and the trust Will Eisner extended him, until he was confident Eisner's treasure could be portrayed with the respect it deserved. And right there, filling the hall was a raucous New York crowd, roaring in response to their first glimpse at what, I believe, is a dream come true for all of us. Only two regrets: I'd have happily suffered Eisner's inevitable criticism, and our inevitable argument, were my Mentor alive to see it."