The Point – January 19th, 2009

Battlestar Galactica is underway and Apollo weighs in on where the final nine are headed, big treasures in the comic stores this week, More stars are coming to NY ComicCon and why you really need to see FanBoys.

PRESS THE BUTTON and you’ll Get The Point!

 

Transcript

Hello, it's Mike Raub. Welcome to The Point where all parts of pop culture come together. Battlestar Galactica, where is that headed? Well, we bring in Apollo to weigh in on his opinion on the Final Nine. There are lots of treasures in the comic stores this week.

We'll tell you where to find them. More stars coming to New York City and you really do need to see fanboys. It's Monday, January 19th and we get to The Point right now. This is The Point, The Point Radio, get The Point Radio. I had a chance to see a screening of fanboys last week.

Now, if you don't know about it, it's a film that is set in 1998. It has a group of friends in it who are anxious to see the premiere of Star Wars Episode One, The Fan of Menace. And for a couple of different plot points, they need to see it sooner than later. So they decide to take a road trip, break it in Skywalker Ranch and steal a print of the film.

The movie itself has had its own little road of troubles. It began all the way back almost three years ago when it was shot. There were reshoots and plot changes over the last couple of years. It's been screened in a couple of different versions, even as more recent as last year's San Diego Comic Con. There have been a whole bunch of different release dates, including one last September,

that we really thought was going to happen. And now finally, fanboys gets pushed to be released on February 6th, just a few weeks from right now. So what was the movie like? Well, I found it comfortable. I found it warm and engaging. It was clever dialogue and a plot that moved along at just the right pace.

But the thing I found most intriguing about this was that it's a buddy film. Now, not in the sense of Robert De Niro stuffing Charles Grodin in the trunk of the car and driving across the country. This is the kind of movie that you really need to enjoy with one or more friends along with you in the theater, or when the DVD comes out in the comfort of your own home. For those of us who live the life pop culture, there are a lot of moments here

where you really need somebody next to you to nudge with an elbow and whisper, Hey, isn't that all I can say is that you just have to watch about every scene closely and trust me, you will be rewarded. So in the world of wrestlers, dark knights and slum dogs, I really doubt a fanboy is going to make more than a whimper. But that's not really that important. There's still a whole bunch of us who get a tingle even today when that fanfare hits.

And for all of us, this movie will be a treat. Big breaking news the past couple of days from the New York Con, that involves the hero initiative. They're doing a charity art auction at the show this year, featuring some beautiful art from some of the biggest names in the business like Joe Quesada, George Perez, Darwyn Cooke, Jay Lee, John Romita, senior and junior and a lot more. A total of 100 different 28 lots are available for the event.

They're divided up into two main categories, a live auction and a silent auction. Now the live auction itself will take place on February 7th at 6 30 at the show. It'll be hosted by chairman George Perez. There'll be 29 different lots of artwork available in that. And if you'd like to see the artwork beforehand and you're at the show, you can check it out the hero initiative booth all day Friday and then on that Saturday, the 7th until 5 p.m.

Meanwhile, there's a silent auction, which also takes place at the hero initiative booth. The silent auction will be held once each day with different material, both Friday, Saturday and on Sunday as well. And you can see that at the booth of the show. What about those of you who will make it to New York Con? Well, don't worry, you can get involved as well.

You can see all the items up for bid right now. At hero initiative dot org. There's also information there about how you can place a proxy bid for the live auction or for the silent auction as well. But there is a deadline. You got to get it in by Wednesday, February 4th. Again, for complete details and to see all the artwork up there, you can see it right now at hero initiative dot org.

A lot more guests are added to the list every day at New York Con, this time, including some stars of big TV shows like French, Life on Mars, and even Peter Petrelli, Milo Ventimiglia from Heroes. Is back again for a second time at New York Comic Con. For complete updates daily and we do mean daily, check out New York Comic Con dot com and look for us February 6th through the 8th as the point broadcast direct from New York Comic Con 2009. It's Monday, January 19th. Here's what we're talking about in pop culture this week.

Good news from NBC. I'm a no big surprise that they renewed the office 30 Rock and the biggest loser all back for another season. But the bigger surprise here is that an NBC spokesman said that heroes and we're quoting had a very secure future on the network. We'll hold them to that. Meanwhile, the Hollywood reporter says that Fox's greenlit a series based on DC's human target comic. You know, the one that's been a mini series two or three different times from all the way back, even into the late sixties as well. There was another human targeted TV series back in the early 1990s that started Rick Springfield, by the way.

The new one is going to be written by Jericho co-creator Jonathan Steinberg. As counts as my coolest story of the day, Breakthrough Films and Television has begun production on a new project called Stay Tuned. It's a live action 30 minute fact based series about the world of TV Saturday morning cartoons of the past. Stay tuned features cartoon clips and behind the scenes footage, as well as a mixture of interviews. Cartoon experts coming along to tell the stories of the great days, celebrities and fans talking about their favorites as well.

No plan yet on just where Stay Tuned is going to land. Meanwhile, Cartoon Network is making plans to go a lot more alive in 2010. A full night of live action programming is planned. They brought in some real interesting people to create some new series and includes, of course, Paul Deeney, David Titcher and Mike Werb and a lot more. Some of the projects in development include the crypto tapes.

No, not the dog. It's totally different. Hoops, a series written by David Aaron Cohen. Necessary Evil, based on the comic series you're probably familiar with. Paul Deeney's created something called Prep About Teens at a Mysterious Finishing School.

A lot of other interesting titles on the list, including Wired, Marked Man, Jackers and Rebels. There's also live action versions of Scooby Doo The Beginning that are set to debut later on this year and Ben 10 Alien Force as well, which is a sequel to the previous movie. Move over, Simpsons. The Powerpuff Girls are celebrating 10 years as their anniversary with a new 30 minute special called The Powerpuff Girls Rule. It's by the way, the first new episode created since 2004.

It turns up today on the Cartoon Network. You can catch it later on tonight at eight o'clock Eastern time. All day long today, if you get a minute, click into the Cartoon Network. They're hosting a 14 hour Powerpuff Girls marathon as well. And if you miss all that, tomorrow Warner Home Video releases the complete Powerpuff Girls anniversary collector set.

Six DVDs in a box set, including every episode and every special aired so far. You sure know him as Spike. You might know him as Brainy Agnod. James Marsters is headed to the CBS drama Numbers. Playing a character called Damon Lake, the owner of a fleet of cargo planes who's done work with the CIA.

Something tells me this is not going to end well. By the way, James also recently created a voiceover for the animated Marvel superhero squad. He gets to play the character of Mr. Fantastic. And in case you haven't guessed, it's just about all animation all the time today. One more story on that.

Seth Rogen is now going to star in The Simpsons. He's written an episode of the series and cast himself as a lead character as well. This is an episode centering on the comic book guy who's created a superhero comic that gets made into a feature film. Homer gets involved and well, you can take it from there. Rogen Simpson episode will more likely debut in the 2009 2010 season.

If you're on the East Coast, you might need boots, hat and gloves. But no matter where you are, it is well worth the trip to get out of the house this week. Get down to the comic shop. There are many cool things waiting for you. Here's the five that we found to be most interesting.

First of all, hack slashes back from Devil's Dew. And this is issue 19 on the shelves this week. There are a couple of different covers for this one and a great time to pick it up and see the series. A lot of people are talking about and more than likely it's going to end up on a big screen or maybe a television sometime in the near future. Time to my entertainment's amazing Lone Ranger revival continues.

They've spun a mini series out of the regular series called Lone Ranger and Tonto. And the second issue is out this week. First one shouldn't be that hard to find. It is well worth a look. Spawn continues under the hands of Todd McFarlane with a lot of changes.

Good, bad or indifferent there. You may want to just take a look to see what he's doing this time. It's Spawn number 188 on his stands this week. And for Marvel, it's Ruins number one this week. All I'll say is don't read this one with the lights off.

Hard stuff to look for. Well, there's a logo variant of Ruins number one this week. There's also a variant of Spider-Man Duar number two and a variant of Thunderbolts number 128 as well this week. From DC, there's a whole bunch of faces of evil including Birds of Prey 126, Green Lantern 37, Justice League of America 29, Robin number 182, Supergirl number 37, the Jelani number two, and the regular Faces of Evil book for the week is Faces of Evil Deathstroke number one.

From Dark Reign and Marvel, a couple of tie-ins there including Thunderbolts number 128 and War Machine number two. The boy. Battlestar Galactica is well underway with nine more episodes to go in this final season. Now for those of you who haven't had time to hit the DVR yet, don't worry. We're not going to spoil anything, but we will say a lot of ground was covered in that first one hour and four minutes on Friday.

Jamie Bamber, you know him as Liatama, took a minute to look back at the road his character has taken over the course of the show. You know, the biggest challenge for me is always making it different, changing it up. He is a sort of type. He has got that heroic shackle, which is a curse always. And making it making that problematic and struggling to make it as problematic as possible every year and not to have him, you know, turn into W.D. Wright or Roger Ram.

Well, whoever it is, some, you know, square-jawed hero. And that was a headache at times because inevitably the writers have this cog in the show and that's his purpose really is to be the conscientious sort of rule follower. But he broke enough rules and he got himself in enough trouble to make it interesting and that was the struggle. Again, without revealing anything, Jamie told us one thing that will drive the final days of Galactica. The surprise for me was that Ron really made the ending about characters.

And I think there is a lot of pressure with a muscular story like ours to sort of wow with story. And that's not really what he did and it really worked. So will the finale really be final? You know, there is definitely question marks and there is definitely allusions to a future. And I think every good ending does that.

You know, there is a new beginning in every ending. But yeah, the show, I think the ending is very elegant and it does pretty even-handedly deal with all the people that you love in the show. So everyone gets a really good signing off note. Of course, there's still the Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica, which is set to debut later this year. And if you need a more immediate fix between now and next week's episode, lots of behind-the-scenes stuff wait for you at scifi.com.

It's January 19, 2009. Let's take a shorter trip back to 1992. On this day, a natural gas surge ignited 10 fires and destroyed as many as a dozen buildings in Chicago, a wave of frigid temperatures blanketed the eastern U.S., killing almost 40 people in its wake, and Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Clinton strongly denied any rumors of extramarital affairs.

You ducked out of the cold into a movie theater this week to see the hand that rocks the cradle, Juice, Steve Martin and Father of the Bride. There was JFK, Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast, and the one film I think is one of the most underappreciated Spielberg films of all. I remember you being a lot bigger, a ten-year-old on huge. Robert Williams and Dustin Hoffman in Hook. On TV, there were episodes of Very Indiana, Life Goes On, True Colors, Remember Herman's Head on Fox, CBS had Murder She Wrote,

and over on the USA Network, it was Silk Stockings. On a radio was a guy who called himself Prince B. He began as a DJ and a composer all the way back in the ninth grade. It took a little while, but he got a recording contract and along the way had the bright idea of reviving the song True by Spandau Ballet. Here's set adrift on memory bliss in PM Dawn.

I'm set adrift on memory bliss of PM. The camera pans the cocktail glass behind a blind of plastic plants and finds a lady with a fat diamond ring. Then you know I can't remember a damn thing. I think it's one of those deja vu things. Or a dreamer's trying to tell me something, but we'll have to stop thinking about it. I don't know. I doubt it. I doubt it.

Buckle up. Next stop, another one of those years of unrest. 1969. For these theological students, Stasia were involved saying they'd been isolated in school from the modern world. A United Airlines jet with 36 people aboard was reported missing over the Pacific Ocean. And hundreds of antiwar demonstrators moved into Washington DC for the biggest inaugural day protest in US history.

The biggest date movie of the week was Romeo and Juliet, the one by Franco Zephirelli. It could also be taken to see the Bride War Black, Cliff Robertson and Charlie, Impossible Years and West Side Story as well as 2001. Maybe tonight, well it was a Sunday. That means we capped the night off with Mission Impossible. But before that, episodes of Lassie, Gentle Ben and over on ABC, Land of the Giants. On a radio, prime example of the hit machine, it was Motown.

Coming down the charts was a song called Love Child by the Supremes. Going up the charts, another song, same premise, same girl's different beat. Here's Livin' in Shame. She just didn't know, she wore sloppy dress. Oh, no matter how she tried, she always looked immense.

Out of the parts she ate, never used a four-point dinner plate. I was always so afraid for my uptown friends to see her. Afraid one day when I was grown, that I would be her. Oh, I'm Livin' in Shame. Mama, I miss you.

Oh, I know you're not to blame. Mama, I miss you. Who the Freud? That wraps up today, but a strong suggestion from us is that you take a little extra time tomorrow. Send back, get near a television set, a radio, or in some markets even into a movie theater,

and enjoy the greatness of what America's all about. We'll see you again on Friday. The Point is produced by Malkin Ted Media and is heard on great websites like ComicMix.com and MichaelDavisWorld.com. You can also catch us on iTunes, just search under The Point Radio. And we'd love to hear what you think.

Our email lines are always wide open at mic and givethepointradio.com. See you on Friday. Get the Point Radio.com!