Author: Robert Greenberger

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment releases the surprisingly satisfying Rise of the Planet of the Apes on Blu–ray and DVD Tuesday.

Check out this newly created interactive trailer.

Meantime, yesterday, Australian street artist and painter Anthony Lister began working on creating a fabulous piece of street art inspired by the Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Lister arrived in Southern California straight from Art Basel Miami Beach, the most prestigious art show in the Americas, where he painted several murals across the city. The mural is being painted at 7769 Melrose Ave in Los Angeles across the street from Fairfax High School, and Lister will be there until Monday afternoon.

We hope to share a timelapse video of the work from start to finish some time next week, after Lister’s work is complete.

Warner Archive has been doing an excellent job dipping into the vaults and finding films and television shows for all ages, producing them on-demand for the seriously interested fan. What seems baffling, though, is the time between some of their releases. Take The Jetsons, no, not the 1962 gem but the 1980s revival. Warner released season one from this Saturday morning show a while back and then offered up the first 21 episodes from season two in June 2009. Finally, The Jetsons Season 2, Volume 2 has been released, in time for the holiday season.

Originally, this futuristic situation comedy was modeled at the popular Jackie Gleason series The Honeymooners but found its own voice as the space age family of the future lived a life most families dreamed of: push button cooking, self-folding cars, machines to dress you and help with makeup. It was all far from perfect as we used to see during the end credits as the treadmill George Jetson used to walk Astro went haywire.

Despite a single season of prime time, the original show went on to syndication nirvana, appearing weekdays during the afternoons or weekends as part of the Saturday morning lineup throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The revival was purely kid stuff as you can tell from the more juvenile plotting and more outrageous situations the family found itself in. In addition, young Elroy befriended Orbitty, a fuzzy alien as a sidekick – a seemingly mandatory Hanna-Barbera touch and since they already had a dog, an alien was the next best addition. Also joining the extended supporting cast was Mr. Spacely’s brother Orwell whose inventions propelled more than a few plots.

The stories found in these two discs all have their moments of slapstick and warm humor along with moral lessons they all learn, although George seems to be the one most in need of help. We also get heavy doses of stories lifted from other works such as “Elroy in Wonderland” and “The Swiss Family Jetson” which kick off the set and “A Jetson Christmas Carol” which closes out the season. They also parody the popular ABC series Fantasy Island with “Fantasy Planet” although it just made me miss Ricardo Montalban. In “Jetson’s Millions”, George wins a lottery and suddenly is part of the same class as the Spacely’s and an unflattering rivalry ensues.

The characters are true to form with George lazy as ever, Jane occasionally giving in to her wild side with disastrous results, boycrazy Judy, and prototypical good boy Elroy. We see their fortunes rise and fall, success coupled with failure and an enduring optimism that keeps you coming back for more. The family housekeeping robot Rosie is nowhere near seen often enough.

The synthesizer sounds added to the score somewhat date the episodes along with the topical references which viewers today may find puzzling. The computer animation also makes things look a bit different than the original cel animated style. As you would expect, transfers from 1980s material are pretty clean but not perfect. The sound is fine and overall, it’s nice to have these for your home, even if they are inferior to the original series.

There’s a tremendous bit of nostalgia wrapped up in Super 8, one of last summer’s most pleasant surprises. For adult moviegoers, it makes us long for the pre-Internet days when a movie can arrive and surprise us. The movie is clearly director J.J. Abrams’ homage to the movies of Steven Spielberg, the ones he grew up watching thirty years ago, movies filled with the fantastic including Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.

But, Abrams’ valentine is intended for today’s more jaded moviegoer and as a result, unlike the benevolent aliens who visited Earth in those two films, the ones seen in the new film are more terrifying, evoking an entirely different set of emotions. But, the innocence of childhood is retained as Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) and his pals set out to make a movie and wind up having the adventure of a lifetime.

Like the best of Spielberg’s work, this movie evokes happy memories of childhood and family so just as important as the friendship ties is the relationship between Joe and his widower father Jackson (Kyle Chandler) in the middle American town of Lilian, Ohio.

Given the setting of the story, it makes perfect sense that the young teens are using a Super 8 camera to shoot a zombie film as the previous cycle of zombie movies was just winding down. They witness and record a train wreck that unleashes a deadly secret, one the military and sheriff Dad try to contain. Unfortunately, and just like in a good Spielberg film, odd things keep happening: there are the missing dogs, missing metal objects, and then people go missing.

Abrams knows how to ratchet up the suspense and then lull you into complacency with all the family drama between father and son and young romance as Joe notices Alice (Elle Fanning) in a new way. And since this is a film about kids, of course they unrealistically factor into the climax in ways less organic than in E.T. Still, you don’t often get two top filmmakers collaborating on something that has this much heart and soul as opposed to mere pyrotechnics (although this offers those up, too). Abrams also benefited from another winning score by Michael Giacchino.They wisely spent their $50 million budget, turning out a compelling 112-minute movie that you can enjoy at home.

Paramount Home Video sent a DVD for review and the standard transfer is excellent along with superb sound. The extras available on this single-disc package include some fine Audio Commentary from Abrams, co-producer Bryan Burk and DP Larry Fong.  There are tons of fun-sounding extras on the Blu-ray disc but we’re left without them, instead just able to see “Deconstructing the Train Crash”,  a nice featurette complete with storyboards and interviews.

New York, NY  (December 2, 2011) Top Cow Productions and Image Comics announced today a premiere launch event at Meltdown in Los Angeles for the Pilot Season 2011 voting period. The Pilot Season “Take Control” party invites Los Angeles fans to meet the various creative teams involved in 2011’s Pilot Season competition, get their books signed, and get the details on how they can determine the winning series this year. The event is co-sponsored by Chipotle Mexican Grill, through arrangement with marketing firm Bonfire Agency.

Since 2007, Pilot Season has become the leading fan-driven comic event, allowing creators to compete with brand-new original properties for fan votes. This year, Top Cow released eight unique pilot issues by eight creative teams ranging from established industry pros to up-and-coming talent to screenwriters and even one NFL All Star. With all eight books in stores, voting will begin on Monday, December 5th at topcow.com, where fans can also find additional information on each title.

To kick off the highly contested month of voting, Top Cow and Image Comics have partnered with Meltdown Comics to host a “Take Control” launch party on Wednesday, December 7th from 7:00-9:00pm. Fans will have the opportunity to mingle with the creative teams, get their Pilot Season issues signed, receive free comics from Top Cow, and enjoy free food and drinks furnished by Chipotle Mexican Grill. Confirmed guests include Joshua Hale Fialkov, Rahsan Ekedal, Morgan Davis Foehl, Dennis Calero, Brad Keene, Matt Hawkins, Filip Sablik, Nick Nantell,Dan Casey, and Troy Peteri. All fans in attendance will also receive “Buy One, Get One Free” certificates for future visits to Meltdown’s neighborhood Chipotle at 7660 Sunset Blvd. Meltdown Comics, one of Los Angeles’ premiere comic shops, is located at 7522 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90046 and can be reached at (323) 851-7223.

This year’s voting process has evolved from previous years. From December 5th to December 18th, fans will be able to vote as often as they would like for their favorite series. On December 19th, the four highest vote-getters will continue to the second round. Until December 25th, fans will be able to vote once per day for their favorite series, with the highest two vote-getters continuing to the final round of competition on December 26th. The final winning series will be determined when voting closes on December 31st and will be announced in early January 2012.

“Pilot Season is one of the highlights of the year for all of us at Top Cow and we’re thrilled to kick off the voting in style at Meltdown,” commented Top Cow Publisher, Filip Sablik, “Rather than just do a standard signing event, we thought it’d be fun to have a party and celebrate all these great new books! I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a couple impromptu campaign speeches on December 7th.”

“We’re thrilled to have Chipotle on board for this leg of the Pilot Season program,” added Steve Rotterdam, Bonfire Co-Founder and Partner. “It makes the event all the more celebratory.”

For more information on Pilot Season, go to topcow.com. For additional information on the event and Meltdown, head to meltcomics.com.

Thanks to our Voltron friends, we have two Voltron mask  avatars for XBox to give away.

Here is what you will see when you go to download the game from the XBox Marketplace. The cost to download the game, when it becomes available on Wednesday, will be 800 Microsoft Points. More will be released on the launch date but why wait?

Voltron: Defender of the Universe, produced by THQ and Behaviour Interactive, will be a 1-5 player online co-op game. Players will be able fight as the individual lions in an overhead shooter style gameplay to then form Voltron to take on Robeasts in a fighter style combat.

How do you win one of these avatars? Easy. All you need to do is tell us which is your favorite Voltron Force pilot and why. Entries must be received by 11:59 p.m., Thursday, December 1. The judgment of ComicMix‘s panel of experts will be final.

After the cut are additional details on the game and the world of Voltron.

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