Eight years after the Joker held Gotham City in his grip of terror, the rich have gotten richer, the poor are in Dickensian straits and the city is at a stalemate. With the Harvey Dent Act, the city has reduced crime by stuffing the jails. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale: The Flowers of War) is now a retired recluse who pines for lost love and hopes to heal a mind and body battered by his Batman stint.     Gotham and Wayne are pulled out of indolence by meaty mercenary Bane (Tom...

On the other side of the Delta levees is a shantytown called The Bathtub. It’s so cut off from the outside world that six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) envisions her community as a wonderland. Life is simple, clothes are dirty and magic is everywhere.     Hushpuppy lives next to her father Wink (Dwight Henry) and spends her day collecting pets, feeding the hodgepodge of animals, listening to the heartbeats of every creature she encounters and making sense of the...

“If you brought your kids to this, you’re [expletive] parents!”     So begins Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre’s latest production, which features puppets, songs and decidedly adult situations. It’s a show so crude, rude and politically incorrect the only thing you can do is laugh.     The show follows Princeton (Colin Hood), a recent college graduate who realizes the real world isn’t as great as he imagined it. Jobless, holding...

  Ben (Aaron Johnson: Albert Nobbs) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch: Battleship) are two California boys who made it big in a volatile market. No, they’re not investment bankers. This pair of best buds grows the greatest ganja in the world.      Ben is a brilliant botanist and businessman who believes in Buddhist philosophies and letting problems go. Chon is a former Navy SEAL who believes in beating any problem into a bloody pulp. With Chon in charge of the less savory parts...