Update #2: People.com says that Bale has been released this afternoon, and will return to the station in September.

Update: Christian Bale was arrested earlier today on allegations of assault. No, Batman. Bad Batman. Not when you do $158 million on opening weekend, Batman!

We try not to dwell on the tabloid fodder here at Cinematical, but considering the nature of the story and, more importantly, who's involved, this is a tough news nugget to let slip by.

According to the Associated Press, Christian Bale has been accused of assault by his own mother and sister just before the European premiere of the record-breaking The Dark Knight. Bale allegedly assaulted them at a London hotel on Sunday, and while the allegations were formally made on Monday, Bale was not taken in for questioning until Tuesday -- which leads some to theorize that the premiere was to proceed without interruption.

Naturally, Bale's various representatives are refusing to return calls at the moment, and while I have little doubt that Bale won't be charged, I also can't help but think that two members of his family would even suggest as much were there not an incident of some sort. What do you guys think?

Photographers, journalists and casual television watchers alike went into frenzies late last year when the Sex and the City team reunited all across New York for the feature-length version of the hit series. Whether or not you're a fan, it's hard to deny that Sex and the City qualifies as one of those event films, if only because it puts a definitive cap on the six seasons when the show became a phenomenon. It's automatically a quintessential New York film, belonging to a separate class from any number of movies that come out each year incidentally featuring New York that could take place anywhere else.

For that reason, you'd imagine that the movie would celebrate the town of its title with a glitzy New York premiere at some big media affair, of which there is never a shortage. Oddly enough, the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Sex and the City might premiere in London, of all places. London? Really? When Spider-Man 3 opened last year, the Tribeca Film Festival dedicated an entire week to the webslinger with large scale events throughout New York's five boroughs. Considering all that Sex and the City owes to New York -- its entire legacy, really -- the idea of fleeing to Europe first sounds a little confused. Then again, I never understood the appeal of this show anyway, but that's just me. Right?

You're going to see a lot of bad reviews of Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream, as I did before I went to see it. But having gone in with lowered expectations, I came out thrilled. I liked Cassandra's Dream a great deal. I went back and looked at some of the reviews, and I couldn't see how what they said related to the film. It seemed that most of the bad reviews were directed at Allen himself, his habits and ideas, or perhaps an expectation of Allen, or an expectation of the crime genre, rather than the film itself. This leads to a complex discussion of Allen's career, which goes much deeper than I'll ever have room for here. But suffice it to say that Allen has had a far more difficult time pleasing moviegoers than he did before he broke up with Mia Farrow and married Soon-Yi Previn.

I am a longtime fan, and in the past I have willingly put myself in the position of defending Allen's work even when there wasn't much to defend. I have written rave reviews only to revisit the films later and realize that I may have been wrong. But I believe he has tried harder, and tried more different kinds of things, in recent years than he did when he was younger and far more popular. I also believe that in the future, Allen's work, like Ozu's or Fassbinder's, may make up a far more coherent whole than it will a collection of individual masterpieces. That said, Cassandra's Dream is the third of Allen's British series. It ignores the previous entry, Scoop (2006), and harkens back to Match Point (2005), which most critics considered a successful comeback and a reinvigoration for Allen. It also revisits the themes that bubbled through Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), wondering not how one accomplishes a crime but how one deals with the concept of having accomplished a crime.

So I sent my wife out to a 7-Eleven by my apartment yesterday in hopes there would be something Simpsons-related left for me to devour, and all she came back with was two cans of Buzz Cola and a couple of weird twisty straws. Looks like this is going to be tougher than I thought. Anyone manage to grab a Radioactive Man comic? How is it? Can you send me one? While the 7-Eleven/Quik-E-Mart promotion has been the talk of the town this week, some more news regarding plot for The Simpsons Movie has arrived via The Hollywood Reporter. Apparently, a 10-minute clip of the film was recently screened in London and a majority of the scenes suggested the film will carry plenty of environmental and religious themes. Not to mention there's one scene featuring Bart's private area.

Although folks have been talking up Bart's so-called full frontal nudity for quite some time now, some have suggested that you don't actually see anything. Instead, all the talk was more of a marketing ploy to get people in seats. Well, according to The Hollywood Reporter, that's definitely not the case. In describing the scene, they note (possible spoilers ahead): "Perhaps the biggest laugh was for Bart, who skateboards through town naked after being challenged to do so by Homer. After a series of scenes where strategically-placed extras and props protect his modesty, the audience gets a full view of his private parts through a gap in a hedge." Poor Bart. Speaking at a post-screening Q&A, Matt Groening said he expects some people to be a tad miffed by what they see. "In America there's someone willing to pretend to be offended by everything and so we annoy people and that's part of the appeal," he said. "It's to entertain people and also to annoy a certain segment of the audience as well."

Apart from the brief nudity, Simpsons family members will also be tackling some of the world's more pressing issues. For example, the band Green Day is booed by Springfield residents when it starts talking about the environment following a performance. Also, Lisa becomes a green campaigner and gives a lecture called 'An Irritating Truth,' based on Al Gore's Oscar-winning doc An Inconvenient Truth. But that's just the tip of the melting iceberg; I'm sure there's a lot more heading our way when The Simpsons Movie lands in theaters on July 27.

Sure, you could travel to Sundance in the dead of winter and suffer frostbite for your trouble, or visit any one of dozens of conveniently-located festivals in the US screening independent films. But doesn't it sound more exciting and exotic to hop on a cross-Atlantic overnight flight so you can arrive in Swinging London just as the brand-new Declaration of Independence Film Festival gets underway? (Gotta love the cheekiness of the name, though the logo is a bit abstract for my taste.) Friday, June 1 marks the first day of screenings for the inaugural edition of the fest, which promises "the very best in new independent cinema from the USA and Canada." Many of the films are receiving their International Premiere (i.e., screening for the first time outside their native country) and a number are still awaiting distribution deals in the US, so this looks like a great opportunity for Londoners and stray cinema tourists to catch up.

For a first-time fest, the programmers assembled a very decent line-up. Of the features, Paul Fox's Everything's Gone Green and Jeff Lipsky's Flannel Pajamas have both been released in the US; other titles that I've seen and can recommend include Reg Harkema's Monkey Warfare (an entertaining comedy/drama about aging Canadian bohemians), Daniel Casey's The Death of Michael Smith (intriguing, stylish, sometimes confusing mystery/crime drama), and Matthew Nourse's The Pacific and Eddy (which I haven't seen, but it's "filmmaking haiku" according to Variety). Among the documentaries, Kim enjoyed Darius Goes West: The Roll of His Life when it played at AFI Dallas; the others are less familiar to me, but the subject matter (including musicians, comedians, lottery winners, a civil rights attorney, and real-life Mexican superheroes) is nicely varied. Check out the festival's web site for more details.

Fox Atomic decided to torture us by inviting us over the the swanky Fox lot to view the first 28 minutes of the in-progress flick, 28 Weeks Later (we parked in "The Sound of Music," and let me tell you ... those hills were most definitely not alive. They didn't have eyes either, thankfully). I can say with absolute conviction, if you liked the first one, you're going to like this one as well. It's also safe to say (according to Fox Atomic) that you don't have to have seen the first film in order to enjoy this one. That's definitely true from what I was treated to.

Here's the setting: it's 28 weeks since the outbreak of the Rage infection that decimated London in the first film, 28 Days Later (hence 28 Weeks Later ... both movies are timed from the infection outbreak, which is day zero.) If you haven't seen the first film, the Rage virus/infection isn't pretty. One bite (or even a single drop of blood) from someone who is infected will put you instantly into a "state of irreversible hyperactivity and murderousness," according to Wikipedia. It's almost like being turned into a familiar horror movie staple (we aren't using the zed word here), except with the extreme hyperactivity.

It's old news by now that Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe will be appearing nude on stage in London during a production of Equus. However, we've recently come across this poster for the upcoming play, and it's hard not to find it just a little bit disturbing. They've even made Radcliffe's nipples into the horse's eyes, and it'll be hard to look at Harry Potter the same way again. The play is about a boy who really loves his horse, and Radcliffe decided to take the role to prove that he could play other parts besides the boy wizard.

There is no doubt that Radcliffe has been offered plenty of other acting roles that would show off his debatable acting skills, but this just really seems off the charts. I recently saw the film Driving Lessons with Rupert Grint who plays Ron Weasley, and he does a great job in the film without dropping a stitch. Plus, with Equus being only a London stage play, won't that limit the amount of people who are going to see what Radcliffe's range is? I guess his parents are supportive of this move, which seems hard to believe, but to each his own. It will be very interesting to see what the public reaction will be to this play. Our prediction: Either shock and empty theater seats, or Potter fans come to see Harry in a whole new light.

[Via Towleroad]

Jette told us in March about the evolution of Dirty Dancing from gloriously cheeseball film to equally cheesy stage musical, and the show -- which has already had a run in Australia -- is finally in rehearsals for its London debut. And, frighteningly enough, London has gone wild over it, despite the fact that it isn't even in previews yet: British audiences are so eager to see The Lift in the flesh that they've completely sold out the first six months of the show's upcoming run, making Dirty Dancing (at least by whatever math the BBC's The Ticket uses) one of the most successful West End musicals of all time. Before anyone has seen it. I don't know about you, but I suddenly find myself a little frightened by our English friends.

According to the show's (and movie's) writer, Eleanor Bergstein (Who, by the way, based the screenplay on her own life -- ooooh Eleanor!), the show is more than a piece of fluff. In fact, in her mind, when Johnny interrupts the big posh gala at the end to dance with his lady, he's actually heralding in as big a cultural shift as Bob Dylan did when he sang "A change is gonna come." Seriously, she said that -- I just heard it on the radio. So keep your focus on his mind, not his tight pants, if you please. ...

Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon has decided to trade in her Oscar glory for a job as a pizza delivery girl. The actress is currently in London where she's co-producing and co-starring in Penelope alongside Christina Ricci. The film itself appears to be some sort of modern day fantasy fable in which a girl (Ricci) attempts to break away from a family curse on a search for love and happiness.

With production starting later this month, Reese Witherspoon has signed up for driving lessons because, well, driving around London on a bike with pizza strapped to the back is kind of freaking her out. Here's the best part: After said lessons, our Best Actress will be tagging along with some regular old pizza delivery guy so that he can teach her the ropes.

Here's my question: Knowing Witherspoon is reportedly making upwards to $30 million for her role in Our Family Trouble, should she show up to your house with a pizza pie, do you tip her? And if so, how much? If it's less than $10 million, do you think she'd clock you over the head with a golden statue? Oh, and if there's something wrong with your pizza, would have to go through her publicist for a refund?

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival opens next week in London (New York gets one in June), continuing the group's effort to both showcase and, increasingly, "[help] make movies with distinct human rights themes." In addition to screenings - some of the world premieres- the festival offers short plays on relevant themes, educational programs for students, and Q&As with actors and directors involved in some of the featured films.

Among the works in this year's festival are James Longley's Iraq in Fragments, which won the documentary cinematography and directing awards at this year's Sundance Festival, and Winter in Baghdad and Smiling in a War Zone, documentaries about American involvement in the Middle East that examine the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, respectively. Other topics explored in this years films include race relations in Brazil, Peru's battle against the Shining Path rebel group, and the mistreatment of women in depressingly high number of countries.

The festival runs from March 15-25 in a wide array of theaters in London; discount tickets can be bought in advance on the festival's website (linked above).