The BBC has released details on the new season of The Sarah Jane Adventures which will debut in the United Kingdom on September 29 and run through December 15.
Starring the Doctor’s former companion, Elisabeth Sladen, the second season is largely unchanged from the first and barely reflects on her appearance in Doctor Who’s fourth season finale. (more…)
I was talking with “goldeneye” Glenn Hauman about a week ago and our conversation, as it often does, turned to politics. Glenn told me both presidential candidate Barack Obama and presidential candidate John McCain were asked which was their favorite games of chance. Obama replied “poker” and McCain replied “craps.” Glenn and I both found these choices telling, especially with McCain’s recent choice of Sarah Palin as his running-mate which certainly qualifies as something of a crapshoot.
Poker involves a lot of different elements: reading the other player, calculating the odds based on the cards played and the cards you hold and, as the song says, knowing when to hold ‘em and knowing when to fold ‘em. You need to think. Craps counts on luck and your gut feeling. You do your ritual, roll the dice, and hope.
That’s not the main reason I’m for Obama over McCain in the Presidential race but it is indicative of why I prefer the senator from Illinois over the senator from Arizona. We’ve had almost eight years of someone who trusted his gut and rolled the dice and the country has come up craps. We’re neck deep in it. It’s time for a poker player – someone with intelligence and skill.
There are/can be/should be a lot of different elements that goes into choosing the person you want in the most powerful position on Earth. There’s been a lot of talk about “experience” and which presidential/veepal candidate has the most or what kind of experience they’ve had. I’ll tell you a secret, though – everyone has experiences. The real question is have you learned anything from them and, if so, what.
The American poet Emily Dickinson lived most of her life within her house and even her room. Yet from that set of circumscribed experience she distilled 1800 poems and described vividly the “landscape of the spirit.” On the other hand, we also all know people who seem to never learn from their experiences and keep repeating them over and over again to their own detriment.
For example, Wile E. Coyote has lots of experience chasing roadrunners. He never seems to learn much from those experiences. He’s not a quitter; got to give him that. He has lots of tenacity. And he just announced Petunia Pig as his running-mate. I like ol’ Wile E. but I’m not going to vote for him for President. I want the guy who avoids the traps, not the one who steps into his own trap time and time again. (more…)
Seth Green chatted with Entertainment Weekly about his forthcoming projects including joining the cast of NBC’s Heroes this season. He and pal Breckin Meyer and “starting on set Monday. I’m a really big fan of the show, and I kind of begged for a long time to see if there was anything I could do.” He also confirmed that a second Star Wars Robot Chicken special is in the works. Carrie Fisher will be participating. Meantime, Fox will be rebroadcasting the season premier of Fringe for those who missed it or forgot to set their DVRs on September 14. To round out the full two hour slot, they will preview the first four minutes from the September 16 episode plus sneak an extended scene from 20th Century Fox’s feature The Day the Earth Stood Still, opening December 12, and a preview of the two-hour November TV movie 24: Redemption. “>Entertainment Weekly about his forthcoming projects including joining the cast of NBC’s Heroes this season. He and pal Breckin Meyer are “starting on set Monday. I’m a really big fan of the show, and I kind of begged for a long time to see if there was anything I could do.”
He also confirmed that a second Star Wars-themed Robot Chicken special is in the works. Carrie Fisher will be participating.
Meantime, Fox will be rebroadcasting the season premier of Fringe for those who missed it or forgot to set their DVRs on September 14 from 8 p.m – 10 pm. To round out the full two hour slot, they will preview the first four minutes from the September 16 episode plus sneak an extended scene from 20th Century Fox’s feature The Day the Earth Stood Still, opening December 12, and a preview of the two-hour November TV movie 24: Redemption.
NBC released an announcement indicating their problems with Apple and iTunes are over. Beginning immediately, their top 10 programs will be available for download and season passes can be purchased for most of their series. This applies not only to the Peacock network but its USA Network, SCI FI Channel, Bravo, Sleuth and NBC News channels as well. Oxygen, Telemundo, Mun2 and NBC Sports will be added later.
With the debut yesterday of iTunes 8, the shows will be available in standard ($1.99) or HD ($2.99) formats. Older series can be seen for $.99 each while some can be had for free. Among these shows will be The A-Team, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Miami Vice, Kojak, and the original Battlestar Galactica.
NBC Universal is offering one free episode from each of their top series, available in either SD or HD, on the iTunes Store for the next two weeks. The premiere episodes of upcoming series, such as Knight Rider, My Own Worst Enemy and Kath & Kim will be available on iTunes a week before their broadcast premieres later in September and October, with subsequent episodes available the day after broadcast.
Rango is a new CG-animated feature film from Paramount Pictures, set to begin production in January. It is being directed by Gore Verbinski, making his animated debut, and he’s being joined by his Pirates of the Caribbean star Johnny Depp as the lead voice, that for a pet that goes on an adventure. The script is from John Logan (Star Trek: Nemesis) using an idea by Verbinski. Industrial Light & Magic will handle the actual animation chores.
The studio has staked a March 2011 release date.
The ambitious method of animation, Verbinski told Variety "will allow us to capture and translate every aspect of Johnny’s performance, using it to drive the computer-generated character in a way that has yet to be seen in an animated feature."
According to the trade, Verbinski and Logan have are also collaborating on Bioshock, a video game adaptation for Universal Studios.
The Sun in the UK is reporting today that David Tennant’s negotiations to return for a fifth season as Doctor Who may include a guarantee that he star in the much-rumored feature film. The contract being dangled before the 37-year old actor is reported to be worth £1.5 million.
An unnamed source told the tabloid, “For ages, BBC Worldwide held the rights and were planning to make a movie, but it got held up and former BBC1 boss Lorraine Heggessey decided to bring back the TV series in 2005.
“But everyone is keen now and the fans are clamoring. Part of David’s conundrum is that he wants to do films, so this looks like it would solve both issues.”
Peter Cushing in 1965 and Paul McGann in 1996 both starred as the Doctor in previous film versions. Tennant is already committed to four specials and a Christmas story for airing in 2009.
As reported during our weekly box office items, this was not a good summer for 20th-Century Fox. We’re not the only ones to notice and an analysis in Variety shows the depth of their troubles as the studio has tumbled from its number one spot, getting through the lucrative season without a single film to break the $100 million box office barrier for success.
The lack of a break out film is partly being blamed on X-Men Origins: Wolverine being a year behind its anticipated release. This was precipitated by Hugh Jackman agreeing to star in Australia, opening this fall, but pushing back Wolverine’s schedule. The production proved troubling with the studio nearly firing director Gavin Hood until Richard Donner flew to the Outback to smooth things over on the project, being produced by his wife, Lauren Shuler Donner.
Coming to their rescue, could be other Marvel Super-Heroes. In addition to Wolverine, David S. Goyer’s X-Men Origins: Magneto inches towards green light. Following could be the Young X-Men project we tipped you off to a while back. Now they include on their development slate Deadpool, possibly spinning out of Wolverine. Ryan Reynolds plays the merc with a mouth and could gain his own spotlight.
They’re even thinking of rebooting Daredevil, the way Paramount rebooted Universal’s Hulk. A director’s cut of Mark Steven Johnson’s film is due out September 30 and its performance could influence the decision.
First, they need to win back to the fanboys who are outraged that Fox’s lawsuit might deprive them of seeing Watchmen next March.
Last night, Peter David and Mike Perkins did a midnight signing at the prestigious Midtown Comics in Time Square. Despite the late hour, there were several fans in attendance and
each had the opportunity to be among the very first to purchase the debut issue of the new miniseries Dark Tower: Treachery and the premiere of the first miniseries based on Stephen King’s other major work, The Stand: Captain Tripps.
The Dark Tower book series is Stephen King’s very popular opus. The Dark Tower comics, plotted by King’s aide Robin Furth (who also wrote The Dark Tower: A Complete Concordance) and scripted by Peter David (X-Factor, She-Hulk, Fallen Angel), have been serving as prequels to the series, showing the Gunslinger hero Roland when he was a young man and revealing other secrets of his home. Treachery is the third mini-series.
The Stand is perhaps Steven King’s most famous book, depicting how the last survivors of humanity cope with the forces of good and evil after a plague wipes out most of the planet. It is also a part of the Dark Tower series in that the demonic villain Randall Flagg makes an appearance in both. In fact, Flagg (also known as "The Dark Man", "The Walking Dude", and "The Man with no Face") appears or makes his presence felt in several other books and stories, earning him the title of King’s "super-villain." Mike Perkins (Union Jack, Captain America) is handling the art for The Stand.
Also on this occasion was the birthday of Kathleen David, Peter’s wife. Midtown Comics, being the classy people they are, were only too happy to hook up the party with a massive cake, sodas and many cupcakes.
When the signing and fan greeting was done, I sat down with Peter and Mike to ask them a few questions.
Do you often find yourself waiting in line at the bank, sitting on a train, or hanging out in church thinking to yourself “boy, I wish I could read some old issues of Racket Squad!” Well, you are in luck, thanks to Bit-o-lithic’s ComicZeal, you now can.
Just released for the iPhone and iPod Touch, ComicZeal allows you to read a selection of dozens of copyright-free Golden Age comics for a one-time fee. The smart features allow for landscape and portrait views, remembering your page when you leave the application, and the ability to zoom in on panels, and this could certainly be the beginning of mainstream comics on the iPhone. Here’s just the beginning selection of what ComicZeal has to offer, notably a larege selection of the underrated ACG titles are here:
Eerie–2 Issues
Forbidden Worlds–40 Issues
Out of this World–11 Issues
Outer Space–9 Issues
Racket Squad–29 Issues
Romantic Adventures–5 Issues
Strange Worlds–5 Issues
You can currently pick up ComicZeal in the App Store in iTunes or your iPhone today for a breezy $5.99.
Week two of the Siegel & Shuster Society’s auction to fund the restoration of Jerry Siegel’s Cleveland home is underway and more creators have signed on to add items for bidding.
Joining in the auction, which already includes items from Brad Meltzer, Ed Brubaker, Joe Staton, Gene Ha, Judd Winick, Ivan Reis, Bill Morrison, John Romita Jr., Dave Johnson, John Cassaday and Andy Kubert are:
BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid, donating the original Curt Swan cover art to Legion of Super-Heroes Index #2.
J.H. Williams III, donating his cover art from Superman Beyond 3-D #1
Jimmy Palmiotti is donating a chance for a fan to become a character that will be shot by the star in a future issue of Painkiller Jane.
Danny Fingeroth is donating autographed copies of his books Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero and Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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