The Bat Tour

Couple quick comments...

I saw Batman Begins tonight and was fairly impressed. They got it right. This fifth installment in the Batman movie series, not counting the old Adam West film, ranks up with the first one as one of the best. They've done a nice job of reviving a series that was killed by the horrible cheesiness of the fourth film. Fans want a Dark Knight, a troubled hero, not the campy crap that Joel Schumacher brought us in "Batman and Robin". Christian Bale fits the role well, not that being a better fit than the previous Batman, George Clooney, was hard. Bale is good though. I'm interested to see where they take the series from here. Small spoiler: the ending sets up a premise for how all sorts of nuts are loose on the streets of Gotham. It also sets up a possible sequel with Batman archnemesis, The Joker. That surprised me because I didn't expect the next Batman film to reuse the villain that Jack Nicholson played so well in 1989's "Batman".

As for the Tour de France, Sunday was the toughest stage of the tour. Lance's loyal teammate George Hincapie won the stage and Lance put even more time into all of his opponents except Ivan Basso, who finished with Lance and remains 2:46 behind. Armstrong isn't as dominate this year as he was last year, when he won an amazing six Tour stages. His only stage win so far this year is the team time trial. Yet among the overall contenders, he's been at the front every time. For each attack, he answers, and his rivals end up hurting each other while Armstrong stays with whoever of them is in front. Disaster could still strike, but barring a crash, it looks like Lance will win his seventh straight Tour de France and retire a champion.