The Point – January 26th, 2009
Watchmen toys at last! Just one of the five cool things in the comic shops this week, plus The Punisher headed to DVD, Hot exclusives headed to the New York ComicCon and why no one is headed to The Oscars this year.
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Transcript
Hello, it's Mike Raub and welcome to The Point, where all parts of pop culture come together. The Punisher is heading to DVD. You're going to head to the comic store for our five cool things this week, one of which isn't even a comic book. And Mike Gold tells us why he's not going to be planning to head to the Oscars. It's Monday, January 26, 2009, and we get to The Point right now.
This is The Point, The Point radio, get The Point radio. A couple of weeks after all the excitement for Watchmen dies down, there's another surprise coming, albeit a little smaller one. That is the DVD release of Punisher 2 Warzone. Now you probably know that film actually came out over the holiday season, but hey, a lot of us didn't get to go see it. Come on, it was Christmas. Now it's on DVD, a lot of folks
want to give it a chance to at least see the extras. It'll be released on March 17th. And if one of the reasons you avoided it wasn't Santa Claus, but the fact that the first Punisher movie, well, let's just say left you wanting, executive producer Gail Ann Heard says that the direction change here was a very important part of making the movie. First film did very well. It was one of the most successful independent films of the year.
But we do listen to the fans. You know, it's very important. Marvel really cares what the fans think. And, you know, there was a sense that we could do, we could do it better. We could stick to the characters, the villains from the books, which is why we have Jigsaw. And you know, we have quite a few characters that come straight from the pages of the book. More importantly, why did they change from Thomas Jane in the lead role to Ray Stevenson?
I don't know about you, but I'm a huge fan of Rome. And when we all saw Titus Pulo, the character that he plays in Rome, it was like, oh my God, if you put this guy in the Punisher skull best, and he had some serious firepower, you couldn't find a better Frank Hessen. The Azure Warzone hits DVD racks packed with extras on March 17th. It's Monday, January 26th, and here's what we're talking about in pop culture this week.
Well, last week's huge news event has still slipped over into comics more as Marvel and IDW announced their respective appearances with President Obama in them, mainly Spider-Man number 583 from Marvel, and presidential material Barack Obama for IDW are going back to the printer for a record fourth printings. A new printing of Amazing Spider-Man number 583 has a new artwork and the new IDW comic will have a photo cover direct from the inauguration. Both
should be in stores sometime during mid-February. Warner Brothers says they're going to revive Tom and Jerry to the big screen as a family movie franchise. It'll be a mixed live action and animated movie where Tom and Jerry are animated, everything else is live action. It'll also go back to the beginning of the story to show how they met and how their rivalry develops and how they have to work together to get home after getting lost in Chicago. They'll release date
or casting news as yet, however, Brendan Fraser, I'd suggest you stay close to your phone. Seems like the spooky stuff is working well for the A&E network. They're adding a new show called Paranormal Cops. It's a real-life series scheduled to debut later this year and it bases itself on a group of Chicago-based police officers who also are paranormal investigators at night. In a little more solid news, if you love Veronica Mars, then the creator of that show, Rob Thomas,
has a new series you're going to want to look for appearing on Stars in the Near Future. It is called Party Down. Basically, the cast is comprised of a lot of people who Thomas has worked with before, including a lot of folks from Veronica Mars, including Jay Lynch, Ryan Hanson, Adam Scott, and a lot more. There's even a rumor that Kristen Bell herself may make an appearance in Party Down after it debuts on Stars about 1030 Eastern Time on March the 20th. You know, I feel that on a cold
winter night, nothing warms you up more than channels surfing around and finally a comfortable old rerun on TV late at night. If you feel the same way, you'll be glad to hear that WGN America has added Star Trek The Next Generation to its lineup as of this weekend. There's a whole bunch of episodes that will air every Tuesday night starting 7 to 10 o'clock with a fourth episode they run in the middle of the night right around 1 a.m. and they run a fifth episode
Saturdays at noon as well. They're acquired all seven seasons of the series by the way, which is a total of 178 one-hour episodes. The guy who wrote the film Big Fish is now going to be writing the adaptation of the preacher graphic novel for the big screen. As you remember, Sam Mendes is the guy who's been brought to direct the film. How much of the series, which by the way constituted about 75 comics, will be adapted into the original screenplay is unknown yet. No
more news yet on casting on that movie as well. By the way, now the Watchmen has got a green light to hit the big screen. Look for a lot of Watchmen merchandise to begin hitting the stores starting of course this week with the Watchmen figures in comic book stores. But there's a lot more coming Titan Books as Watchmen the art of the film. Lots of background information, character sketches, adaptations, and all sorts of things in there. And also music from the motion picture Watchmen,
the official soundtrack of the film is headed to stores in March as well. It includes My Chemical Romance's reinterpretation of Bob Dylan's Desolation Road that was done exclusively for the film. There's also a lot of classic songs in there as well including stuff by Nat King Cole, Simon and Garfunkel, Janis Joplin, and a lot more. And a little sad story for Baby Boomers and even well beyond that, Mad Magazine has announced that they're going from a monthly schedule
to a quarterly schedule beginning with issue number 500 which will be on sale in April. They're also discontinuing some of the additional publication like Mad Kids and Mad Classics as well. If you're asking why, well I would assume the economy and slagging sales are more than likely the reason. However, in typical Mad Fashion a spokesman for the magazine said that since every third issue of Mad seems to be the funny wins they've decided to publish just now.
Well we're about two-thirds of the way through awards season which is TV talk for sweeps as next month so we've got nothing. We've had the People's Choice Awards, we've had the Golden Globes Awards, and now the Oscar nominations, sorry the Academy Awards nominations, and TV's still got nothing. The People's Choice Awards is just another cheesy hustle from Dick Clark, America's original decrepit New Year's baby. The People choose every time they pick up the remote
control, every time they venture out for another stupidly expensive trip to the ultra mega movie complex. We know how they voted because television also inundates us with entertainment tonight, extra E and other fodder that makes seminal gossip columnist Walter Lynchell sound like William Shakespeare. February 14th 1929, St. Valentine's Day, in a warehouse on Chicago's south side. Members of the Al Colon gang disguised as police gunned down seven above morons boys.
Three lived long enough to say… Golden Globes are chosen by the most irrelevant gaggle of people in the world, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. You can find out all you need to know about the organization by googling who cares. The Oscars were invented as a publicity stunt by movie moguls. It soon became important as the best way to keep Bob Hope from bothering our troops for a week.
When Hope grew too old and Johnny Carson retired, an endless series of adequate talent has tried to entertain us with congratulatory self-referential gags that are even too obvious for madmen. First, the dead people. Advertisers love them, the dead do not run over time when giving their acceptance speech. Okay, sure, Heath Ledger was the John Berrymore of superhero villains. Fine, I got that. Second, the heady movies people wouldn't see if you shoved the gun in
their grandmother's mouth. If you don't understand these movies, you must be stupid. Third, children. As far as Hollywood's concerned, this week's child actors are next week's dead actors. Give them an award, pat them on the back, let them curtsy, and give them the hook. Awards shows were television's first reality program. Once we figured out, of course, that Jerry Lusk was going to drop dead in the 21st hour of his perpetual marathon.
Here's an idea. Take the time you spend on one of these things and go see a movie. This is Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine. I'm Mike Gold, On the Point. The point radio, the point radio. This one's cool. Well, we promised we'd tell you five cool things in the comic stores every week. We never promised they'd always be just comics. And this week at the top of the list and hopefully in the shelf in
your favorite store will be the very first of the Watchmen movie figures. Now, these are going to be cool just to look at. Very anxious to see how they interpret so many of the characters from the movie and the graphic novel as well. Chances are that once you get them in your hands, you're going to want to buy at least a couple. Also cool this week. Third issue of Umbrella Academy Dallas, a great miniseries. It continues in a second run from Dark Horse Comics and the first one is still
available in trade paperback. Last issue of Final Crisis. Again, we just got to see what it all means. Hopefully it'll be in here in Final Crisis number seven. Astounding Wolf Band number 12 from Robert Kirkman. Always a solid book to pick up and enjoy. And also this week from DC, the DC library's Superman Kryptonite Nevermore. It's a hardcover book that contains one of the best reinterpretations of Superman from the early 1970s. And I think it holds up real well today. Faces of Evil from DC
this week. Your tie ins include Bad Band number 685, Justice Society of America number 23, Superman number 684, Teen Titans number 67, and Wonder Woman number 28, as well as Faces of Evil Cobra number one. Dark Reign tie ins from Marvel. Just a couple this week. Ms. Marvel number 35 and New Avengers number 49. And then the Hardstops second printings and variants you'll be looking for this week include the second printing of Final Crisis number six. There's a variant to Wonder
Woman number 28. Dark Tower treachery number five has a couple of variants as usual this week. There's Marvel's Eye of the Camera number three which has a black and white variant. Scourge of the Gods this week from Marvel. It's the first issue of three and there's a variant on that one. It's also one for Scar, Son of Hulk number seven this week. And again a couple of variants. For Stand Captain Trips number five. Last issue in that series from Marvel.
It's up to you, New York. Just 11 days until New York Con. You know one of the most important things when you go to any convention or finding out the cool things that happen on the days right before the con starts or right afterwards and some of the cool things you can walk away and take home that are only exclusive to that particular show. For special events there's a couple of that announced you may find of interest. One is coming from Illustration House. It's called
their Astounding Art Sale but basically it's a celebration of some great artists including Michael Golden, Martek Sierra and Steve Scott will all be there live on Thursday February 5th from five to seven o'clock. They'll have original large books to sign and give you a chance just to hang out and talk at one of the nicest art galleries in midtown Manhattan. There'll also be a lot of other works on display including stuff by John Buscema, Jeff Jones, J. Scott Campbell, Gene Colan, Paul Goulacy,
Jack Kirby and so many more. Again it takes place at the Illustration House on Thursday the day before the con starts. That's February 5th and it runs from five until seven p.m. and the Illustration House is at 110 West 25th Street in New York City. Okay so what about the cool con exclusives? Well there are tons. A couple of we found of interest to pass on include ones from Shocker Toys. These guys always have stuff to cool the hand out of big conventions. This time they've got limited
editions of two of their more popular indie spotlight action figures, Scud the Disposable Assassin and the Max from Sam Keith. These individual figures are smoky translucent yellow with all sorts of cool things in addition to them and they're very limited if that's important to you. There's only 400 of each available and they'll be available only at the Shocker Toy Booth at New York Comic Con all weekend long. As far as limited edition comics goes, boy there's tons of those.
Usually the biggest people to have those out are the guys at the Aspen Comics Group. They have a couple special they're going to debut with the show this year. A Fathom number five New York Comic Con exclusive with a Michael Turner cover limited to 750 copies and the Aspen Showcase Ember number one which has exclusive covers by several different artists and is again limited to both 750 copies. Both available only at their booth at the show and if you're writing down
booth numbers well they're 1623 for Aspen Comics. Of course there are tons more convention exclusives get the very latest list at nycomicon.com and for the very latest news and believe me it changes literally from hour to hour check out the blog from Lance Festerman, the guy in charge. Medium at large.net is where you'll find his blog. From New York Comic Con we're counting down the days till we see you there. It's Monday January 26 2009 let's take a step back to the glory days of Bill
and Hill. Senate Republican leaders said that President Clinton's plan for universal health care was now in trouble. Jurors in the trial of the alleged parent killer Lyle Melendez were deadlocked and consumer confidence in the economy rose to the highest level in four years. A lot of value this week for your movie ticket you could check out Air Up There, Remains of the Day, Sister Act 2, Jurassic Park, Robin Williams, an address in Mrs. Doubtfire and if you needed something to
cleanse your palate of that there was always Tia Carrera in Wayne's World. Later on on TV Law and Order was already a mainstay in the nighttime schedule. There was also Robert Stack and Unsolved Mysteries episodes of The Nanny and Home Improvement and in my opinion one of the most underappreciated shows animated or not of the 90s. It was The Critic. Hello Jay this is your doctor we've been going over your x-rays and it seems you're made entirely of cheese. Time machine!
Auto Radio was an Irish rock band formed around 1990 they originally called themselves the Cranberry Sauce. Later they changed that name. Pretty much an alternative rock band they brought in parts of indie, indie pop, rock and even pop rock elements. Had a couple of albums in England but wanted to cross over to fame here in the U.S. like so many other bands at the time had. It was their third album one called Everybody Else is Doing It so Why Can't We that brought them on a
tour across the United States. Still the album wasn't catching anything on fire until one of the concerts MTV saw them and then put some of their videos into a hot rotation of the video channel. That did it for the Cranberries right to the top of the chart with the song here and again back to the top in England as well. It's called Linger. Take a step back again a couple of decades this time to a period a little less prosperous.
The body of former president Lyndon Baines Johnson laid in state at the Capitol Road Tunda in Washington. Strong rumors circulated that President Nixon was about to announce a Vietnam peace plan. At the end of that was news of Henry Kissinger holding secret talks with the North Vietnamese. In the movies there were some smaller ones like Cool Breeze and Sounder. The big hits like the Getaway, some more adult fare like Fritz the Cat and one big sweeping epic that was the
Poseidon Adventure. On TV later on ABC had Marcus Welby, CBS gave us an episode of Hawaii Five-O and NBC had the Entertainer of the Year Awards handing out statues to Mac Davis, Carol O'Connor and Liza Minelli and then back over on CBS then there was ! On a radio in a troit soul group that began like so many did at the offices of Motown,
however singer Aretha Franklin convinced them to switch labels and when they did well there was a chance meeting with superstar producer Tom Bell that began things for this group. It was a self-titled album released last year that produced a number of hits and this was number two in a long line for the spinners. Here's Could It Be I'm Falling in Love. That's funny you say that you are so helpless too that you don't know what to do
each night i pray that will never come a day when you up and take your love away say you feel the same way too and i wonder what it is i feel for you could it be i'm falling in love would you baby could it be i'm falling in love
would it be i'm falling in love would you would you would you so cool
that does it for today we are back on friday though with a whole bunch of stuff to talk about that'll get your mind off of super bowl the point is produced by malcontent media and heard on great websites like ComicMix.com michael davis world.com ravenwolfstudios.com and zzcomics.com you can check out our past shows on itunes or subscribe to the very latest one so you don't miss anything or get all the good stuff at getthepointradio.com same place where you can drop
me a note and tell me what you think my email address is mike at getthepointradio.com see you on friday get the point radio dot com
