Author: Robert Greenberger

David Selby Relocates from Collinsport to Gotham City

  • News
  • September 19, 2012

Having made his mark as a villain for many of his 45 years in the entertainment industry, David Selby is only too happy to provide the heroic voice of Commissioner James Gordon for Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1.

Selby is best known for his long-running roles as Quentin Collins, the werewolf brother to vampire Barnabus Collins on the original series Dark Shadows, and as the ruthless, vengeful Richard Channing on the 1980s primetime soap opera Falcon Crest. Between those two series alone, Selby logged more than 500 episodes as an antagonist.

Finally, Selby gets a beloved protagonist turn as the everyman hero James Gordon, a straight-shooting, intelligent lawman bent on doing what’s right … with the help of his old pal, Bruce Wayne (and his alter ego, Batman).

Selby will be in attendance on both coasts for the World and West Coast Premieres of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1. Selby is the lone actor on the September 20 post-screening panel at the Paley Center in New York, and he’ll be joined by co-stars Peter Weller and Ariel Winter for the panel discussion on Monday, September 24, at the Paley Center in Los Angeles.

After making his professional acting debut on Dark Shadows in 1968, Selby found fame on the large and small screens as well as Broadway. His film career runs the gamut from early starring roles opposite Barbara Streisand in Up The Sandbox and alongside Ron Liebman in The Super Cops to a memorable role as one of the key lawyers in The Social Network. On television, surrounding his 209 episodes of Falcon Crest, Selby has been seen on everything from The Waltons, Police Woman and Kojak to Ally McBeal, Cold Case, Mad Men, and HBO’s Tell Me You Love Me.

Selby is also one of the more learned actors around the industry, having earned a Master’s Degree from West Virginia University, and a Ph.D. in Theatre from Southern Illinois University. Beyond the stage and screen, Selby has written two volumes of poetry.

The affable Selby was happy to discuss his role as James Gordon following his initial recording session for the two halves of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Here’s what he had to say …

QUESTION: Having spent several hours in his mind, how do you see Police Commissioner James Gordon in this film?

DAVID SELBY: Because Bruce Wayne is Batman, and even though we all want to be heroes, Gordon is willing to take a quieter, more backseat role. I think he’s persistent, he’s calm. He’s a very practical man, like certain presidents. Lincoln was a very pragmatic guy, and I think Gordon is a very pragmatic commissioner.

Gordon is the type of guy that would think, “If I’ve gotta do it, and it’s going to make it right, and I look out and I know that my wife is going to be fine, and the children are going to be fine, then if a certain kind of justice is required to do this, I can live with it.” That’s my kind of Gordon. A very strong, practical guy.

QUESTION: In this film, James Gordon is 70 years old and about to retire. David Selby is now 70 years old. Usually it doesn’t matter in voice acting, but does that age similarity help increase the bond between actor and character?

SELBY: What are you saying? (laughs) That I’ve been playing this game for 50 years? (laughs harder) Well, I guess that’s true. You know the frustrations, the thinking of “Okay, I’ve got a few years to go, and there’s still one thing I want to do.” Maybe I want to play Macbeth. I don’t know. There’s definitely some parallels. Really, though, it’s the whole life experience – that’s the thing that ties me to Gordon. Having been around and seen what we’ve seen. I understand his frustrations. My God, all you have to do is pick up a bloody newspaper. It’s hard to not get frustrated. Sometimes the best thing to do is to avoid the paper in the morning.

QUESTION: Was there a centering emotion you used in James Gordon to help you focus on his motivations?

SELBY: For Gordon, what he wants to do more than anything in the world is that he wants to leave the world a little better place than when he came into it. And he thinks of how awful it would be to live your life and not be able to do that.

I like Gordon. Sometimes you have to draw the line in the sand, the morality line, and each of us has to decide how far you’re willing to go for success. Now if you’re battling the Mutants, you can go a long way. You can step over that line, as long as you know why you’re doing it. That’s my little take on that.

QUESTION: You had more than 300 episodes to get to know Quentin Collins for Dark Shadows. You spent 209 episodes creating Richard Channing for Falcon Crest. Today you had about four hours to become James Gordon. How do you develop a character that quickly?

SELBY: You don’t. You just sort of depend upon Andrea (Romano) and Bruce (Timm), because they know this territory far better than you. I did do a little research, though. I asked my son, who is a great aficionado of Frank Miller and all of these things. That was my first call. He gave me a great rundown, so there was a little preparation. So mostly you put yourself in the hands of those that know the character, and learn from their experience.

QUESTION: So your son is a Frank Miller fan. Do you have newfound street cred in the family?

SELBY: You can’t imagine. My son-in-law is a big fan, too. I’m in like flint now. I couldn’t have done better than to be able to make that call. “Do you know Dark Knight?” “What do you mean, do I know Dark Knight? Who do you think you’re talking to?” “Well, I’m playing the Commissioner.” “You’re playing James Gordon? You’re playing Gordon?!? Commissioner Gordon?!?!?” I never mentioned the Gordon’s name. (laughs) I just said the Commissioner. Oh my God. How special is that? I like that.

QUESTION: Did you read comics when you were a kid?

SELBY: We lived in a little community called Woodburn, where I grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia. There was a store down the street from where I grew up – a confectionary, you know, “beer on tap” – and they had a comic rack. Tom and Ann Torch owned the place – Tom would sit in the corner by the Coke machine and play checkers. And then guys would come in and order … Dewey would order egg in his beer, and all the regulars who lived in the neighborhood would be around. We could look in the comics, and they never once said “Put the comics down.” Now, once we graduated from comic books and went on to Sexology and Golden Nugget girls, then Ann and her sister Hortense got concerned. But as long as we stuck to the comics, it was okay, so I read all the comics. I’d also go two houses down to my friend Wally’s house – he had a lot of comics. But at the Richwood Confectionary, that was terrific place to grow up. Sit in there, drink a Nehi Orange for a nickel, and read your comics.

QUESTION: What was going on in 1966 that made it right for both Dark Shadows and Batman to premiere and explode in popularity?

SELBY: That was a special time in the 60s, and for whatever reasons these shows captivated the public’s imagination. Maybe we just needed it in the 60s. They were shows that allowed you to escape … shows that made life a little easier to cope. I think about New York City at that time and all the things that were going on. The corruption, the racial conflicts, the unrest at Columbia University. There were protests everywhere. Then there was Chicago, and the election in 1968. The assassination of Martin Luther King, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Vietnam was raging. And then you had these shows. I’m sure some sociologist is examining all of this and working it out. But I think those two shows, Batman and Dark Shadows, they fit that expression, “Whatever gets you through the night.” It is interesting that they both came out of that period. But maybe not. Maybe the times were right.

QUESTION: You’ve obviously had the experience. But do you like playing the villain?

SELBY: I’m not complaining – a lot of times the villain is the most interesting character. But I’ve played some awful people. I played a character who got rid of his own sister. In doing these characters, I like them, and you have to get your audience on your side somehow. They have to understand where you’ve come from. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll hang in there with you.

REVIEW: Terra Nova

Any time Steven Spielberg comes to television, it’s always with something different. He honored the anthology series of his youth with Amazing Stories and lent his storytelling expertise to get ER launched, making that into a smash hit for NBC. So, when Fox heard of a series about humans and dinosaurs and Spielberg, it seemed like a no brainer. If anyone could get dinosaurs to work convincingly on the small screen, it was the director of Jurassic Park. What the network couldn’t count on was the full extent of Spielberg’s involvement and in time the series was placed under showrunner Brannon Braga’s control. Braga cut his teeth on Star Trek: The Next Generation and has gone on to do other genre fare, but he can’t seem to repeatedly sacrifice characterization in favor of conspiracy and that’s where Terra Nova fell off the rails.

Delayed by schedule issues as the massive CGI prehistoric creatures proved more difficult to execute on a budget, the series debuted last fall and for 14 episodes, we were treated to a series with tremendous potential, most of it wasted.

In 2149, mankind has choked the world so badly that time travel to resettle humanity in the past was the best hope for survival. A colony was established and those fortunate enough to be picked were sent in waves, controlling the impact of man altering the past. We follow the Shannon family from this wretched dystopia to the clean air of the past and see if people can do better when given a better chance. Jim Shannon (Jason O’Mara) is in jail for violating population laws and conceiving a third child but is broken free and joins his wife, Dr. Elisabeth Shannon (Shelley Conn), 17 year old son Josh (Landon Liboiron), 16 year old daughter Maddy (Naomi Scott), and five year old Zoe (Alana Mansour), as they join the Tenth Pilgrimage 85 Million years back in time.

Terra Nova is a thriving colony under the command of Commander Nathaniel Taylor (Stephen Lang) and contains enough raw power to protect the populace from the mammoth critters that wander the jungles just beyond their walls. While the thrust of the stories should have been the struggle to adapt to the environment and its deadly inhabitants, Braga had other ideas. Apparently, The Others, I mean the Sixers split back during the sixth pilgrimage and are working with unknown forces back in the future to seize the pristine world’s resources. Then there’s the mystery of Taylor’s son, a genius who was either part of the conspiracy or its pawn. Add in a blackmarketeer, a teen turned traitor to save her ill mother, young romance, and a few other threads, you get a crazy quilt of plots that could actually be told in any other environment.

The show failed to be different from its genre competitors because it avoided the most unique element going for it: dinosaurs! Man versus nature! How do the people adapt to diseases, microbes, and minerals they never encountered before? How do they ensure each step they take beyond the colony does not in some way create a vastly different tomorrow? Nope, the show skips all of those possibilities for conspiracies and soap operas.

The appealing cast does its best with weak material but by the end of the series, it was clear that there would be little progress in solving these dilemmas and when the plug was mercifully pulled in March, it vanished without much of an imprint in the genre or prime time television.

The complete series is presented on four standard definition discs from 20th Century Home Entertainment. In addition to fourteen hours of drama, the set comes with complete with some vaguely interesting deleted scenes and an extended version of “Occupation/Resistance”, the two-part finale (there’s also an audio commentary from Stephen Lang, Brannon Braga and Rene Echevarria). There are a handful of somewhat interesting “Director’s Diaries – Making the Pilot” with comments from Alex Graves, whose work I have generally admired. Finally, there is a brief look at “Cretaceous Life: The Dinosaurs of Terra Nova”, which should enlighten younger viewers who can’t get enough dinosaurs, and “Mysteries Explored”, delving into the less interest aspects of this failed series. Rounding things out is a gag reel.

A series with potential like this is all the more disappointing when it does not embrace its strengths in favor of a creator’s personal interests. Had Spielberg been more hands on, things might have turned out differently, but as it stands, the show is a mildly engaging misfire.

REVIEW: Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures

  • News
  • September 18, 2012

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were two of a generation of filmmakers that studied their craft in the late 1960s, having been raised on a steady diet of science fiction and comic book action courtesy of the 1930s movies and serials making the rounds of television. Their sense of storytelling and pacing clearly harkens back to the breathless sense of adventure found in the 15-chapter matinee events and the chills that Universal’s monsters offered. They cut their teeth in film and television, respectively, paying their dues and exploring at a time when almost anything was possible in Hollywood. When their friendship blossomed and the notion of collaborating on a film came up, it seemed obvious they would explore those common sources of inspiration.

Thirty years ago, we were treated to the first result and collectively, we were blown away. Everything felt pitch perfect about Raiders of the Lost Ark, from John Williams’ rousing score to Harrison Ford’s casting and appearance. It demonstrated new facets of their craft and proved a commercial blockbuster—the right film at the right time during a magical summer when almost everything else was pretty spectacular.

The success led to more sequels of varying quality but the fedora, the whip, and the theme music have been burned into our collective consciousness, making us want more. After the disappointing fourth installment, the films were packaged as the Complete Adventures and this week, Paramount Home Video brings Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures out entirely in Blu-ray along with a fifth bonus disc of extra material. It’s a handsome package, complete with terrific Jason Palmer paintings to decorate each sleeve.

Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are all here in their gorgeous high definition glory. The first film, making its Blu-ray debut, was meticulously restored and looks amazing. This alone makes the set worth having because it’s like watching it again for the first time and you revel in the subtleties. Each disc comes with the theatrical trailers, saving the remaining extras from the previous editions plus new material for the fifth disc.

Let’s get right to the new material so you can judge whether or not this is worth buying one more time. Your get a brand new “On Set with Raiders of the Lost Ark” “From Jungle to Desert” (29:35) offers up new footage, beginning with location scouting and including chronological footage of the making of various scenes, intercut with remastered clips from the film. All of this is supplemented with interviews from Spielberg, Ford, and company. You get some bloopers and deleted moments including yes, the almost gun versus scimitar scene. The second part, “From Adventure to Legend” (28:17) goes on to explore storyboarding, set construction and scene preparation for the “Well of Souls” sequence. We then get treated to the details behind the “flying wing” fight sequence, the truck chase, and so on. The Legend part allows them to weave in outtakes and deleted scenes from the next three films. Like the films and creators, these two offer you some new information and additional moments to watch.

Also new is the 1981 “Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark” making its home video debut. The other features from the various DVDs are here although none converted to high definition.

Indiana Jones is far from your everyman considering his wide range of skills and knowledge. He’s a globetrotter during an era when that was romanticized in fiction and film and encountered famous personages with great regularity. And yet, all he wants to do is preserve the past and teach at the University, charmingly oblivious to the dreamy stares his co-eds shoot his way. Indy is charming in a regular guy way, with that sly smile that shows he’s in charge of the situation. He’s also flawed, giving Ford something to work with. His complicated relationship with his father, explored nicely in the third film, frames his character and might explain how he managed to sabotage his romance with Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), the one great love he spent decades missing before finally marrying her. By then, he’s discovered his illegitimate son “Mutt” (Shia LaBeouf) and feels the responsibility to make up the lost years and have a vastly different relationship than he had with his father.

The legends and lore that propel each story work well with the different time periods each film is set in, allowing a rich, textured world for Indy and his pals to explore. Spielberg and Lucas have wisely avoided filling each movie with too many special effects, keeping their appearance generally for each climax.

Of course, there’s comic relief, which worked well in the first film with Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) and less so with others such as Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan). The opponents also varied in quality from his mirror self in Belloq (Paul Freeman) to the unconvincing Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody). It’s a shame the films are so uneven given how great the main character is but Spielberg’s tastes take a back seat to Lucas’ concepts and by now it‘s clear he is great with some high concept notions and less great with the details and pacing, making you wish he’d collaborate more with the likes of Lawrence Kasdan, who helped make that first one so memorable.

The third film wrapped up many threads and actually made for a fitting end, a satisfying conclusion to the film trilogy so the gap between that and the less successful Crystal Skull burnishes the former’s appeal all the more. It’s a shame since the older but not necessarily wiser Indy dealing with government conspiracies and UFOs during the 1950s felt like a perfect launching point.

While uneven, the skill of the cast and crew make even the weaker installments worth repeated viewing. This is a handsome package, stuffed with wonders and well worth adding to your video library.

REVIEW: Cabin in the Woods

  • Uncategorized
  • September 17, 2012

Sitting around brainstorming a movie sounds like a great way to spend a few days. According to Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, they fell into their fever-pitch pace after years rewriting episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As a result, they concocted the screenplay for Cabin in the Woods over little more than a weekend. And just the hit series turned tropes and stereotypes on its head; this fright fest also explored, celebrated and inverted the conventions of countless horror films, making for a fresh, funny, original thriller.

You have to pay attention to the film because its smart and do not be lulled by expectations, as is evident from the opening sequences as Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins appear to be going to work at some high tech underground bunker and then we swiftly cut away to your central casting collection of college kids clearly marked for gruesome deaths. As they drive away and a cameo from Nathan Fillion turns up, this is evidently a very different kind of film.

 

Unfortunately, after it was financed and filmed, the movie languished, a victim of the MGM bankruptcy until it was rescued by Lionsgate which finally released it this spring. Unfortunately, their marketing department didn’t adequately tell the world and most missed it. Thankfully, the home video edition is coming out this week and is well worth your time and attention.

 

The quintet is made up of comely Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchison, Jesse Williams, Chris Hemsworth, and Fran Kranz. Williams was already a regular on Grey’s Anatomy, Hutchison was an Australian star, and Kranz was known for Whedon’s Dollhouse, but this was a pre-Thor Hemsworth and seeing this, it’s hard to see anything godly in his studly athlete. Yet, he impressed Whedon during filming and he recommended him to Marvel, which proved wise. Still, the five friends go to cabin for a vacation and as one would expect, horrible things happen and secrets are uncovered.

 

All along, they are monitored and manipulated by the guys in the underground bunker, overseen by Whedon stalwart Amy Acker. There are hints that their work ethic may smack of Office Space but their mission is a serious one and as we shift into the final act, we’re treated to an assortment of nightmares and monsters that echo every horror movie you’ve seen since birth. The CGI effects ran rampant throughout as several of the quintet defy the odds and survive. Worse, they find the bunker and go exploring to learn why they were targeted and some surprise news spells survival or global. Just when you think you know what’s happening, they cleverly toss in a twist, be it a story point, a visual, or some stunt casting to keep you alert.

 

It’s tremendous fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously at all, which is just fine with me. The movie looks fabulous with the screen transfer and it sounds nifty, too.

 

The Special Features some engaging commentary from Whedon and Goddard as we learn about the travails of shooting in Canada. They appear in awe of how game Hutchison was for her various spotlight moments and talked about everything from writing to special effects and time sitting around the sets waiting for something to happen. Whedon apparently shot second unit work which meant he did more than script and produce.

The remaining pieces on both the Blu-ray and DVD are pretty much what you have come to expect these days, including “We Are Not Who We Are: Making The Cabin in the Woods” (28:33) which covers the basic behind the scenes info; “The Secret Secret Stash” (13:07) featuring “Marty’s Stash” with Kranz talking about his stoner character, and “Hi, My name is Joss and I’ll be your guide”; the Wonder-Con Q&A with Joss and Drew (27:30), ‘nuff said; “An Army of Nightmares: Make-Up & Animatronic Effects” (12:10) is about the cool effects; “Primal Terror: Visual Effects” (12:07) focuses on the developmental aspects of the effects; “It’s Not What You Think: The Cabin in the Woods” Bonus View Mode (Blu-ray exclusive). You can also access online the “It’s Not What You Think: The Cabin in the Woods Bonus View Mode”, which is sort of interesting but offers little new.

Kudos to Lionsgate for giving this a spiffy lenticular sleeve, showing some TLC the film deserved.

REVIEW: Homeland Season One

  • Uncategorized
  • September 5, 2012

Not since the spy craze of the 1960s have there been so many television series about intelligence agents. There was the late, lamented and still-missed Rubicon and the JJ Abrams misfire Undercover. Currently, there’s the frothy, entertaining Covert Affairs and for those who like their espionage tales with some meat on the bones, there’s Showtime’s Homeland. The second season of the acclaimed series arrives at month’s end, but for now, the first season is just out on disc from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Anchored by the riveting performance from star Claire Danes, the series explores CIA agent Carrie Mathison and her quest to determine if a returned American POW, Marine Sgt. Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), is the real deal or a sleeper Al Qaeda  agent. Sounds simple enough, right? Instead, over the course of a dozen episodes, nothing is as it appears, starting with Mathison herself. When we meet her, she has just returned from an unauthorized operation in Iraq and is relegated to a Counterterrorism post back in Washington, DC. When her Director, David Estes (David Harewood), tells the staff a POW has been found, it confirms a rumor she had been fed about a sleeper agent. Is it Brody? Is it someone else? Are they connected? Already on thin ice from her Iraq mission, she has to investigate Brody carefully because everyone else has declared him a war hero and you don’t accuse heroes of being evil. Mathison only trusts her suspicions with her mentor, Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin), and together they covertly investigate Brody.

Without giving away all the exciting twists and thrilling turns, suffice to say that over the season there’s a lot of red herring to wade through along with some excellent writing and performing. The series is filled with a lively, engaging, and rich cast including Morena Baccarin, Jamey Sheridan, Amy Hargreaves, and Navid Negahban. The storyline is an evolving one demanding you pay attention so as not to miss a clue (or strong performance). Nothing is as it appears and as the tension mounts, the audience is left to wonder about Mathison’s own sanity. When Patinkin comes to realize how vulnerable she is, the show shifts into some of the most heartfelt moments. Both are damaged souls and few can play that vulnerability better than these two.

Set in and around Washington provides plenty of pretty pictures but the real strength is in the richness of the storyline. In addition to the main plot, we focus on Brody’s homecoming after eight years away and how that has turned his wife and children’s world upside down. There’s the usual office politics and governmental affairs but it all feels fresh which is to be applauded.

Veteran producers Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa (24) were inspired to create this from the Israeli series Hatufim (Prisoners of War), which is now streaming on Netflix. They were lucky to craft a lead character complex enough to entice Danes back to series television, a move that earned her a Golden Globe nomination while the series took home Best Television Series – Drama. The first season arrived on October 2, 2011 and received 1.08 million viewers which was sizeable and stayed that way, earning critical acclaim with every passing week. Having all twelve episodes to watch once more, without waiting a week in between, allow you to study and notice nuances you may have missed the first time.

The four disc DVD or three-disc Blu-ray sets come with audio commentary and some very interesting deleted scenes that fill in some gaps or let characters breathe. The final disc also has the featurette Under Surveillance – Making Homeland, which is nowhere near as enlightening as it should be. There is also The Visit: A Prologue to Season 2 which you will have to watch and judge for yourself.

REVIEW: Drama

  • Uncategorized
  • September 4, 2012

Drama
By Riana Telgemeier
Scholastic Graphix, 233 pages, $10.99/$23.99

Despite being an adult, Raina Telgemeier has not forgotten what it was like to be an eighth grader when everything, from your body to your relationships, change with startling regularity. She demonstrated this in the wonderful memoir Smile and returns with Drama, a story across a school year.

Callie adores the theater and while isn’t comfortable on stage given her horrible singing voice, relishes her backstage work. This year, the final one of middle school, she’s now charged with the set design for Moon Over Mississippi. Her devotion to Broadway fills her head with larger-than-life ideas, almost impossible to pull off with a school budget coupled with her inexperience at things like hammering. What she does excel at is making friends  and she forms some new attachments during the course of the production.

She’s gaga for Greg, the older brother of her best friend Matt, but he has eyes for someone else. Then she meets twins Justin and Jesse; one wants to be the star, the other is equally good but more comfortable working behind the scenes. Their integration into the school’s theater culture forms a large chunk of the story, especially as it becomes apparent one of the twins is out and proud. Of course, drama kids tends to be more accepting of gay friends, but in middle school it’s never easy and Telgemeier doesn’t shy away from, ahem, the drama inherent in this.

The entire graphic novel is set within the framework of a play with opening and closing curtains and even a brief intermission. Aided with subtle and effective coloring from Gurihiru, Telgemeier’s accessible style makes this an easy, entertaining read.  She doesn’t crowd her pages and makes her characters look and speak in distinctive ways, yet retaining that youthful exuberance we all recall from those years in school.

There is plenty of tension during rehearsals and performances and Callie’s attempts to perfect a cannon going off is a metaphor for the entire experience. There is a lovely rhythm to the character arcs as things go from complicated to easy and then veers into the “it’s complicated” territory. By the end of the play, bonds have been forged that helps prepare all of the cast members for the leap into high school. Growing up is never easy and you survive school thanks to your friends and Telgemeier sees to it Callie is well loved as people respond to her devotion to theater and all its trappings.

Michael McKean voices egomaniacal Arkham Asylum psychiatrist Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1

  • Uncategorized
  • September 1, 2012

Michael McKean just can’t stay away from the fanboy realm.

The versatile star of film, television and stage continues to deviate from his mainstream roles to appear in all forms of super hero entertainment, this time lending his voice to the egomaniacal Dr. Bartholomew Wolper in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

Frank Miller’s landmark graphic novel, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1, is the next entry in the popular, ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies. The film arrives September 25, 2012 from Warner Home Video as a Blu-ray™ Combo Pack and DVD, On Demand and for Download.

McKean is a key member of a voice cast that features Peter Weller (RoboCop) as Bruce Wayne/Batman, David Selby (The Social Network, Dark Shadows) as Commissioner Gordon, Ariel Winter (Modern Family) as Carrie/Robin, and Wade Williams (Prison Break) as Harvey Dent/Two-Face.

McKean is best known for his portrayal of David St. Hubbins in This Is Spinal Tap, a role he’s been perpetuating along with his bandmates for more than a quarter of a century. McKean actually is a talented musician – he’s quite handy with a harmonica, guitar or keyboard. His honor role of movie credits include Best in Show, 1941, Planes, Trains & Automobiles and A Mighty Wind.

McKean initially drew the public’s adoration as the first half of the inimitable duo of Lenny and Squiggy on the 1970s favorite, Laverne & Shirley. He served as the self-centered, sex-driven boss Gibby on one of HBO’s first original sitcoms, Dream On; and he was a member of the core cast on Saturday Night Live from 1994-1995. McKean’s

prime time appearances number in the dozens on series like Friends, Curb Youth Enthusiasm, Law & Order (two different characters, eight years apart) and The X-Files.

Even within those roles, McKean found his way into fanboy fun – playing Perry White during a 1995 SNL. He would revisit the role six years later on Smallville. In fact, McKean is one of only seven actors to appear in both Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Smallville – and the only one to also give voice to a character in a DC Universe Animated Original Movie.

McKean’s been to the Batcave before, too. The New York native voiced the 1950s Joker and a Mutant in the “Legends of the Dark Knight” episode of The New Batman Adventures, as well as voicing Sneak Peek for Batman Beyond. For Justice League, he voiced The Sportsman.

The DC Lineage dips into his personal life, as well. McKean is married to actress Annette O’Toole, who has the distinction of playing Lana Lang opposite Christopher Reeve in Superman III, and as Martha Kent for 10 years of Smallville.

McKean obliged us with a few minutes to chat about his latest animated role, and a few other subjects near and dear to fanboy hearts. Take a read …

QUESTION: How did you come to think of Arkham Asylum psychiatrist Dr. Bartholomew Wolper?

MICHAEL MCKEAN: Dr. Wolper is a very, very good shrink … if you ask him. He’s a guy who likes the sound of his own voice; he finds his ego very soothing, even though it seems a little ponderous from the outside. But he is convinced of his own genius, and definitely convinced that these poor, twisted souls who have been entrusted to his care are redeemable because he knows who the real bad guy is.

QUESTION: And that “bad guy” is?

MCKEAN: Wolper thinks that Batman is a social disease. He thinks that it is, in fact, Batman’s ego that is driving the crime wave in Gotham City. And he sets out to prove it. I don’t think he actually makes the case, but you can’t tell him that (laughs) … or anything else, for that matter.

QUESTION: How did you approach playing this character?

MCKEAN: My first impulse was Dr. Phil, but it didn’t work – it was too folksy. I think that a man whose ego is such a construct that it supersedes everything else around him, that’s kind of an interesting character to portray. There are some great examples in history. And I think a man who plays God – especially when it concerns human intelligence, human psyche, human emotions – he’s kind of like a prestidigitator. He’s the expert in the room, and when he tells you something is so, he expects you to believe it. And it’s only when he comes right up against the real world that it all falls apart.

QUESTION: In addition to acting, you also direct. And you’ve worked with Andrea Romano on a number of projects. What makes Andrea so good at what she does?

MCKEAN: Andrea Romano has a kind of a soothing, friendly personality, which of course masks a tyrant (laughs). Kidding, kidding. I think she’s an amazing talent and I trust her implicitly. Often if I’m directing, I’ll say, “Look, I won’t give you a line reading, but” and then I’ll try to make my case and get you to say what you’re supposed to say. As an actor, I actually ask Andrea for a line reading, because she knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s been doing it a long time, and she’s the best in the business. So I utterly respect her taste and opinion. And she’s also a great cheerleader – there’s never a time when I think “Geez, I don’t know what I’m doing here.” Even if I don’t know what I’m doing, she always convinces me that I do … and then she sets me straight (laughs). It’s kind of brilliant.

QUESTION: Does being part of a Batman film have any personal significance for you?

MCKEAN: When I was a kid, I adored the Bob Kane’s 1950s Batman. I liked the Superman comics and Justice League and Flash and the Atom – nobody does The Atom anymore, and that was a cool super hero – but I did love Batman. I loved the fact that they always found a way to stage the climactic scenes in a warehouse of gigantic toys, or huge oversized stuffed animals. And even as a kid, I sort of knew, “Well, (Kane) is sort of bored. He wants to draw something new other than just a street corner and a couple of guys fisting it out.” So I was a big comic book fan, and I loved the DC stuff.

When I went to college, the ABC series began airing. I was at Carnegie Mellon and I’ll never forget that everyone was looking forward to Batman and it was going to be the best thing ever. In those days, there was only one or two TV sets in the entire dorm. So we went down to the common room at McGill Hall and the show came on – and the minute the “pows” and “bams” and sound effects came on screen, the whole place went insane. Now these were all young men of ages 17 to 23, but suddenly we were all kids again. It was phenomenal. So it is kind of nice to revisit that (memory) by being in this film.

I also had the honor of playing the Joker in one of Mr. Timm’s episodes. Mark Hamill was doing the voice at the time, but they had a flashback to the 1950s, so I got to play the Joker in one episode. That was pretty exciting, too. And now it’s nice to be in a full-scale, class production like this.

QUESTION: With all your years of comic book reading, and your interest in the super hero realm, do you have a character you’d most like to play or voice?

MCKEAN: Comics actually taught me how to read. From the age of 3 or 4, my older sister would help me along with my reading lessons, telling me how to sound out words. Then I’d sit with my comics and really develop my reading. I remember that as I was reading comics, I had voices in my head for the characters. But I honestly don’t think I have one that I’d really want to take on. Maybe Bizarro Superman. That’d be fun to do.

QUESTION: You’ve carved quite the resume of film, TV and stage performances, and yet you find time for a lot of animation voiceovers. For you, is that additional work … or working fun?

MCKEAN: It is an awful lot of fun. The only time I don’t like voiceover stuff is if I have a ton of ADR work to do. I did a film called Short Circuit II, where I had a lot of scenes with a robot. And it was a real robot – it was operated off screen, but it really was a mechanical man. And, of course, they had the motors going at all times, Every move the robot made, there would be a noise with that movement. So every scene I had with this damn robot, which was about half the film, I had to loop everything. And that drives me crazy. But when you’re working with people like Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche – I did a bunch of Animaniacs and a couple of Pinky & the Brain episodes – those guys make it such a great party atmosphere. They’re so funny and so smart – just amazing people to work with. That’s the best part of the job.

QUESTION: With so many memorable roles in your lengthy list of credits, what do people stop and ask you about the most?

MCKEAN: I guess Spinal Tap, just because we keep coming back. We made the movie 25 years ago and occasionally we “tour” and make TV appearances and put out product. So people know me from that. Occasionally somebody will come up and say “You’re Gibby from Dream On,” not very often, but sometimes. Laverne and Shirley – not so much. That’s a long time ago, and we’ve all changed (laughs). And, of course, the last few pictures I made with Chris Guest. People love Best in Show. People always say the same thing to me about that film – they say, “You know, you and your boyfriend had the best relationship of all the couples in the film.” And they’re so totally right (laughs). We were made for each other. So that’s a lot of fun, too.

QUESTION: Dr. Wolper is actually featured in both Part 1 and Part 2 of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Can you give us a little teaser of what to expect in the second half of the story?

MCKEAN: The Joker is kind of Dr. Wolper’s pet patient. He is the most irredeemable, as far as society is concerned, which Dr. Wolper takes as a challenge. He’s thrilled and delighted when he sees the Joker making such progress, and he thinks that he’s done so well that the next step is to bring him out into the public to kind of show off his own work. It doesn’t go well.

Glee, Ad Council and Transportation Team for “Stop the Texts” Campaign

  • News
  • August 25, 2012

Washington, DC and Los Angeles, CA (August 22, 2012) – Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the State Attorneys General and Consumer Protection Agencies and the Ad Counciljoined with Twentieth Century Fox Television and Twentieth Century Fox HomeEntertainment to unveil new public service advertisements (PSAs) featuring scenes from season three of Fox’s award-winning television series “Glee” to educate young adult drivers (16-24) of the dangers of texting while driving.

Earlier this year, the Golden Globe winning series made headlines when a pivotal cliffhanger episode ended with a shocking and catastrophic crash due to texting and driving. Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) was driving to her friends’ (Rachel and Finn, played by Lea Michele and Cory Monteith) wedding when a she received a text. She took her eyes off the road to read it and to type the words “On My Way” for a matter of seconds, but in her distraction she swerved out of her lane and was hit in a tragic accident by an oncoming vehicle. It was months before the audience and “Glee’s” millions of young adult viewers would know the fate of her character, but the message was clear: texting and driving can have horrific consequences.

The new television and digital PSAs employ this powerful scene to emphasize that five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting and driving – when driving at 55 miles per hour, that is enough time to cover the length of a football field. The PSAs direct young adult drivers to the Texting and Driving Prevention campaign web site, StopTextsStopWrecks.org, where teens and young adults can find facts about the impact of texting while driving and tips for how to curb the behavior.

NHTSA reports that in 2010, more than 3,000 people were killed and an additional 416,000 were injured due to distracted driving, which includes texting while driving. The “Glee” PSAs are part of NHSTA, the State Attorneys Generaland Consumer Protection Agencies and the Ad Council’s national Texting and Driving Prevention PSA campaign. Launched in October 2011, this campaign is designed to curb the behavior of young adults who text while driving, address the compulsion of this behavior and demonstrate to overconfident young adult drivers that it is not safe to text while driving.

“Texting and driving is an epidemic on America’s roadways, but these crashes are preventable. Distracted driving does not just happen, it’s a choice,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “The first line of defense must be personal responsibility by all drivers to put theirwireless devices away and keep their focus on the road, which is why we are working closely with our partners to build public awareness around this important safety issue.”

“This was a story we wanted to tell because we know the influence our show can have in starting conversations and raising awareness,” commented “Glee” executive producer and co-creator Ryan Murphy. “We were inspired by Oprah Winfrey’s campaign encouraging everyone to sign a pledge not to text and drive, which we all signed when we did her show a few yearsago, and we had been looking for an opportunity to tell the story of how a few seconds of carelessness could have a devastating impact on people’s lives. We’ve already heard from thousands of our fans how this story touched them, and we loved the idea of a PSA campaign to keep this important issue front and center.”

“’Glee’ has always told stories that speak to young people in an incredibly entertaining way, provoking conversation and raising awareness in the process,” said Dana Walden and Gary Newman, Chairmen of Twentieth Century Fox Television.  “When Ryan and the producers told us they were going to tackle this issue, we knew that beyond telling agreat, dramatic story about our characters, it could have very real impact on the lives of our viewers. We couldn’t be more proud of the work they and the cast have done on this incredible series.”

According to a new, national survey conducted by the Ad Council, there has been progress with the attitudes and behaviors among young adult drivers regarding texting while driving.  Fifty-one percent of young adult drivers report that they are “extremely concerned” about their peers texting while driving, which represents an increase of seven percent since September 2011.  Most notably, in regards to their current behavior, thirty-four percent of respondents said that they never text while driving, a significant increase from twenty-eight percent in 2011.

“Driving is one of the most dangerous activities for young adults. Texting while driving is a distraction that young drivers can live without,” said Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, the father of two teenage boys. “Drivers of any age should be aware that texting while driving may not only jeopardize the safety of themselves and others, but it can violate state motor vehicle laws against distracted driving and result in hefty fines or loss of driving privileges.”

“We are thrilled to join Twentieth Century Fox Television, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and ‘Glee’ to unveil a new series of public service ads to further extend our texting while driving prevention messages to their vast audience of young adult drivers,” said Peggy Conlon, president and CEO of the Ad Council. “Our latest research shows a nation that is now on the right track in improving the safety of our roads, but there is still more work to be done. We will continue to broaden our campaign messages to help reduce driver distraction, prevent injuries, and ultimately save lives.”

Since 2006, the Ad Council has partnered with the State Attorneys General to address reckless driving among teens. The “Stop the Texts. Stop the Wrecks.” campaign effort has received more than $20 million in donated media support to date.  For more than twenty-five years, the Ad Council and NHTSA have worked together on consumer safety PSA campaigns. Per the Ad Council’s model, all of the new PSAs will run and air in advertising time and space that is donated by the media.

REVIEW: The Dictator

  • Uncategorized
  • August 23, 2012

dictator-300x378-9913489I have never warmed up to Sacha Baron Cohen’s style of satire. The concepts are great while I find the execution in Bruno, Borat and now The Dictator, to be crude and unfunny. In both cases, I found the clever marketing more interesting and enjoyable than the actual films. The Combo Pack (Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy) from Paramount Home Video came with a nice letter from Admiral General Shabazz Aladeen with bribe bucks from Wadiya. If only the film itself was as funny.

Cohen does a fine job submerging himself into his character, in this case, Admiral General Aladeen, but he then does rude, crude, and preposterous things in the name of satire. Cohen should be made to study the Mel Brooke oeuvre to see how it should be done: character-based and smart humor.

Aladeen hails from the northern African country of Wadiya, a combination if Idi Amin and Muammar Gaddafi and the timing is such that in the wake of the Arab Spring, these sort of larger than life world leaders are a vanishing breed., There’s nothing funny to their antics and they are such caricatures that they are hard to top, making the challenge for the filmmakers all the more difficult.

Those personality and cultural differences are put on display when the dictator comes to New York to address the United Nations, denying once more his nuclear program is for weaponry designed to annihilate Israel (so much for satire). His absence prompts a coup back home, propelling the plot. Now a leader without a country, he has to fend for himself in the world’s biggest melting pot. To retain power, he comes to count on Zoey (Anna Faris) and a fellow Wadiyan, Nadal (Jason Mantzoukas), the leader thought dead. We go to a voyage of self-discovery of the pleasures in life, from masturbation to falling in love, which makes little sense when Aladeen is the most powerful figure in his country. Why is he so out of touch in this global world? Cohen doesn’t pause to explain any of this preferring to make his character simply clueless. The film goes from satire to screwball romantic comedy to biting denouncement of our country and therefore doesn’t feel like much of anything but a few sketches without a strong point of view.

We have some fun cameos from Chris Parnell, Jessica St. Clair, Fred Armisen, Nasim Pedrad, John C. Reilly, Chris Elliot, Gary Shandling, Edward Norton and Horatio Sanz.

The disc comes with the theatrical release and the “Banned and Unrated” version, fifteen more minutes of this nonsense, mostly extended bits between Cohen and Mantzoukas. The hype is unwarranted because it makes the film more boring and unwatchable. We get more scatological and sexual jokes which really aren’t that funny.

Despite the extra material in the new cut, the extras include an additional 34 minutes of deleted or extended scenes which makes me admire the editor for showing some discretion. Lots of these bits are found in the longer version. Additional material includes “Your Money is On The Dresser” (1:35), a music video with the leader; and an unnecessary extended version of the Larry King interview (2:49).

I suppose if you love this sort of sophomoric humor, the movie and disc are perfect for you. On the other hand, given the film’s poor critical reception and lackluster box office performance, it could be that we’ve all grown tired of Cohen’s brand of humor and his time as a polarizing comedic figure has finally come to an end. We can hope for this right up there with our desire for world peace.

Spielberg’s Lincoln One-Sheet Unveiled

  • Uncategorized
  • August 22, 2012

1-sheet_lincoln_v81-300x444-8896758When we saw the first image of Daniel Day-Lewis in his Abraham Lincoln makeup, we thought it was pretty impressive. Considering this is a two-time Academy Award winner in Lincoln, a film from director Steven Spielberg, we know this is one to see. That it is based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s wondferul book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is all the more reason we’re more excited about this than we were with Abe the Vampire Slayer.

According to DreamWorks, which releases the film on November 9, the movie is a “revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.”

The cast includes Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln along with David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook and Tommy Lee Jones. Lincoln is produced by Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, with a screenplay by Tony Kushner. The film is a coproduction between DreamWorks Pictures/Twentieth Century Fox film, in association with Participant Media.

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