The Point Radio: From Earl To Elvis
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Transcript
Hello, it's Mike Raub. We're back. Welcome to The Point where all parts of pop culture come together. We brought along Jason Lee again and he brought along Elvis. Plus, what's going on with the Marvel Studios casting? How is Kick-Ass going to be involved in the X-Men? And Total Recall and Torchwood are headed to comics. It's Friday, June 4th, 2010. Come on along, we get to The Point right now. This is The Point. The Point radio, get The Point
radio. The new TNT drama Memphis Beat has Jason Lee as a quirky Southern detective named Dwight, who also moonlights as an Elvis impersonator. A job that, well, took no small amount of work for Jason. Well, there was a lot of practice with, you know, I've performed a few times now because we're five episodes into the first season. You know, it's a side of Dwight that is as important to him as his detective work, the burden of protecting his city and
those around him and his family, his mother. He's very much a mama's boy and he's vulnerable. That's, I think, why we like him so much. And it allows him to really respect Elvis and the people that came before Dwight and he takes the music very seriously. And so the performances are very fun, of course, but it means the world to Dwight that he has this outlet and this ability to escape the work and kind of go into another world, you know?
And so it makes, it certainly makes me like Dwight very much that he has that kind of depth and care for what he's doing. And, you know, a lot of the music that I'm performing is amazing, you know? And it's just fun to kind of just stop and think, wow, who knew after Earl got canceled that I would end up being, I'd go from that to playing a detective and singing Elvis songs on a stage in Memphis, Tennessee. That's the beauty of acting. You
never know what's going to come next. And if Jason wasn't a fan of the king before, well, now? You know, my appreciation went up for him after this, of course. One of those things that I think, unless you're maybe of a certain age or unless you really understand Elvis, he may be one of those figures that can be taken for granted or, you know, you know of them, you've heard of them since you were a kid. But until you really look into it, you may not know the magnitude of the talent,
you know, and the voice and, you know, it's really special. I mean, how that guy sounded and how hard he worked and what he put into music. I mean, incredible. Don't take it the wrong way. Memphis Beat certainly has a large amount of badass included with it. We're kind of in our in our own way, making somewhat of an old school cop show. And so I think Memphis Beat sort of has a, you know, feels like it could have been a cop show from the 70s, which is cool, which I like.
And also, too, it's it's it's got to, you know, it lets you know that it's a cop show pretty pretty pretty clearly, whereas Delta Blues, you know, you may not know straight away. So I think it turned out to be a good thing. Why they changed it. Catch Memphis Beat beginning this month on TNT. It's Friday, June 4th, 2010. Here's what's going on in pop culture with the departure of Guillermo del Toro from the directing chair for the upcoming Hobbit. People are wondering exactly
who's going to get to sit in that seat. And now Sir Peter Jackson said that if necessary, he'll do it. Jackson has said that he will direct the Hobbit himself if nobody else will step in to take over the one hundred fifty million dollar project. Right now, though, there could be some problems with contracts that Jackson has with other movie studios. Warner Brothers Animation has announced a new Thundercats series animated, of course, to land on the Cartoon Network in 2011.
The classic 1980s series will be the newest project from Warner Brothers, going along with Batman Brave and the Bold. And of course, the other mainstays like the Looney Tunes show and Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated. Look for some strong Japanese anime influence when Thundercats premieres on the Cartoon Network next year. You might be getting your new comics a day early. Right now, Diamond Comic Distributors is doing a survey amongst their retailers about a possibility of
moving new comic day to Tuesday so it can compete with DVD, CD and video game, as well as book releases in other stores. This means retailers would give their deliveries even ahead of the Tuesday day so they'd have time to process them. Right now, the survey is also including a possibility of a secret shopper service to make sure that nobody puts their stuff out early and if they do, there would be severe penalties for the retailers involved. The survey is going on with Diamond
right now. If there's any changes, they might come as early as January of next year. While you're still reeling from the fact that you won't see Megan Fox in Transformers 3, Victoria's Secret has released a video congratulating underwear model Rosie Hummington-Whiteley for landing that role in Michael Bay's next production. A few weeks ago, Paramount declined to pick up Fox's option for the third Transformers movie. A speculation about who would be the replacement. Now it looks like if
Victoria's Secret is true, and gee would they have done a video if it wasn't, that Huntington-Whiteley will have the role in Transformers 3. Internet rumor of the week will kick ass star Aaron Johnson to reunite with director Matthew Vaughn for X-Men First Class. Lots of rumors circulating about this all in the beginning back a few days ago when they were seen together along with actor James McAvoy, who was recently cast as Professor X. Of course, no casting definite shit on that beyond
McAvoy and the part of Magneto, but more to come certainly over the next couple of weeks for the film. According to Jon Favreau, you may see The Hulk in the Avengers movie, but you won't see Iron Man in Thor or in the Captain America movie. On the publicity trail over the past couple of weeks, Favreau's led a few things out about the future of Marvel Studios production. He seems to think that The Hulk will make it into the Avengers movie, although he admits there's no
drafted shooting script yet at this particular point. He's pretty definite though on the fact that Robert Downey will not be in the next two Marvel movies, Thor or Captain America First Avenger. A quick look at the ratings for ABC and it's easy to see that their hour-long dramas are well kind of drifting away and now without loss on the schedule for the next season, things don't look that well for the genre at the Alphabet Network. So what are they doing? Well,
they're going back to JJ Abrams to talk about the possibility of reviving Alias. It's only initial talks at this particular point and they're saying that it would not be exactly the same show that ended just about four years ago. It wouldn't be as complex with the long story arcs that almost put it into Alias. At least that's the way a lot of fans felt at the end of five seasons. Right now, things are only in initial talks. JJ Abrams' other new show undercovers premieres this fall on NBC.
The Hollywood Reporter has more news on upcoming Warner Brothers movies all aimed at their investors, but good news for all of us. For example, December 16, 2011, the Sherlock Holmes sequel will hit theaters. In the meantime, there's a flash adaptation that they say is just about ready to get a go and the Chris Nolan Superman film is now being said to be released for the holiday season 2012. Where did all the people go over last holiday weekend? Well, it wasn't the
movie theaters. The Memorial Day weekend was the lowest grossing in nine years and the slowest in 15 years in the terms of estimated audience. Number one movie barely was Shrek Forever After for its second week at $55 million. Two new movies, Prince of Persia Sands of Time and Sex and the City 2 almost tied exactly for the second place with just around $37 million. Prince of Persia with a little bit more. Iron Man 2 hung in at number four total of $279 million so far for that film.
Also in the top 10, Robin Hood at number five and McGroober down to number nine. Only, are you ready for this? About $7 million total so far for that film. The classic Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Total Recall moves into comics as Dynamite Entertainment picks up the rights to do a new series based on the 1990 popular sci-fi movie. No word yet on exactly where it'll pick up or if it'll be a prequel to the original film. Of course, Dynamite also has done the same with
Battlestar Galactica, Stargate and Buck Rogers. Looks like there will be a Three Men and a Baby sequel. Well, not necessarily a sequel. Shall we call the third part of the original story? It's the original cast in something called Three Men and a Bride, which makes sense, I guess, continuity wise. So far, Steve Gutenberg and Tom Selleck have signed on. No word from Ted Danson. Now the search begins for director. No word yet on when we'll actually see the next season of
Torchwood, but there will be a Torchwood comic from Titan Publishing. The popular BBC series will premiere with two original stories. Captain Jack and the Selkie is the one we've told you before that is written by John Barrowman and his sister Carol with art by Tommy Lee Edwards. You know him as the guy who's doing Jonathan Ross's art on the image series Turf. Broken is the second part of the Torchwood comic series. It's a five-part story written by Torchwood script editor Gary Russell
as well. Every issue ships with two covers, a photo and an artwork cover, including artwork by Ian Churchill. One version will be available exclusively at this year's comic and now to protect the rights and lives of people, citizens, right? This is my gold. It's time for me to rant about our stupid drug laws once again, and this is part one of two.
I don't care if people make the informed decision to cause harm to themselves. When it comes to costs on society, let's do some emotional triage here. We spend a fortune on the war on drugs. Thus far, and it's not yet June, we've spent almost 21 billion dollars. We've arrested three quarters of a million people so far, half of them for weed. How much would we be spending if we restricted ourselves simply to those who go too far and get out of hand? Do you think it's anywhere
near the 50 billion dollars we spend each year right now? Legalize it, yeah, yeah, that's the best thing you can do. Who deserves your sympathy more? The junkie who made his or her own choice? Or the little old lady who gets bashed over the head for her pension check? That's a rhetorical question. We're drugs to be legalized. I'm sure there will be a few people who would experiment, and I love that phrasing, and they'll get bored and stop. Now compare that to all those kids who do it because
it's a sign of rebellion. When weed sponsors Dancing with the Stars, it ceases to be cool. Then there's the critical issue of DUI. That's for part two. This is Mike Gold on the pop culture channel, The Point. ! Pickle with a big two this week for the top five things you need to look for when you hit the comic
stores, and you'll find out the reasons as we go down the list. Starting with, well, if you're a Joker fan and a Batman villain fan, there's a new series on the way, one of those Batman miniseries, some of which are forgettable. I don't think this one's going to be Joker's Asylum, the Riddler number one. Out this week, page through it. Let me know what you think. The return of Tom Strong is big news. Been a while and now DC is bringing back the character in a miniseries that will run six
issues. Hopefully sometime in our lifetime. Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom begin though with number one in your hand this week in comic stores. Marvel takes another step toward the heroic age with another Avengers book this week and an important building block in getting there. That's Avengers Prime number one. And also for Marvel, a couple of different books from Orson Scott Card and his Ender's Game series. If you're a fan of this or know someone who is, here's a
couple of different ways to get into it. First of all, Ender's Game War of Gifts is available this week in a collected really nice hardcover collection for Marvel. And there's Orson Scott Card's Ender in Exile that begins a five issue miniseries with issue one this week also for Marvel. All these and more, plenty of comics from a lot of different publishers available for you in the local comic store. Find out the one closest to you with the free comic book locator service at
1-888-COMIC-BOOK-TOL-FREE or with a free app right now available in the iTunes app store for your iPhone or your iPad. That puts a wrap on us for this week. We're back again on Monday of course, but all weekend long and anytime 24 hours a day. Get the latest in pop culture on the Point Radio. A couple of clicks right now get you there and it's free for your iPhone, your iPad, your Blackberry, your Droid or your good old computer or laptop as well. Go to GetThePointRadio.com. This podcast
is produced twice every week by Malcontent Media and it has a home on great websites like ComicMix.com, MichaelDavidsworld.com, ZZ Comics.com and Ravenswolfstudios.com. We're in the iTunes podcast directory under the Point Radio and get in touch with us anytime and listen at GetThePointRadio.com. Back on Monday with Stone Cold Steve Austin right here. We'll see you then.
