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Longmire Season 3 Now on DIsc

longmire-e1425650705748-5995896The wonderfully underrated Longmire completed its third season last year and was then canceled by A&E for reasons beyond understanding. After some protracted negotiations amidst a fury of wronged fans taking to social media to save the series, Netflix announced they have picked up the series for a fourth season to air later this year.

BURBANK, CA (February 23, 2015) – The stunning skies of Wyoming, and the mysteries beneath them, have never been more enthralling than in the unfolding episodes of Longmire, the popular A&E-turned-Netflix television series.  Those cinematic visuals and intense situations have also never looked better than in the full 1080p HD presentation of Warner Archive Collection’s Blu-ray™ release of Longmire, Season 3, available now via your favorite online retailers.

Warner Archive Collection’s release of Longmire, Season 3 on Blu-ray™ includes all 10 episodes in a three-disc set, as well a documentary entitled “The Ghost in the Storm,” which focuses on the obsessions many of the Longmire characters encounter during the series’ captivating third season.

In this riveting third season, Sheriff Walt Longmire (Robert Taylor) is reeling from a series of devastating traumas. Best friend Henry (Lou Diamond Phillips) is going to prison on murder charges. His deputy, Branch (Bailey Chase), has been shot by a mysterious “white warrior.” And Walt‘s right-hand deputy, Vic (Katee Sackhoff), may not have shaken off a stalker from her past. While Walt shoulders these burdens, his daughter Cady (Cassidy Freeman) fights in court to clear Henry’s name, and The Ferg (Adam Bartley) holds down the fort behind the scenes as threats to the lawmen come from all directions. Absaroka County’s dark secrets run deeper than Walt imagined, and the closer he gets to uncovering the true bloody hand behind his wife’s murder, the more he realizes that connections and corruptions may ensnare them all.

In addition to the cast regulars, Longmire, Season 3 has featured guest performances from such notable actors as Peter Weller (Robocop), Gerald McRaney (House of Cards, Simon & Simon), A Martinez (L.A. Law, One Life To Live, Santa Barbara), Charles Dutton (Roc, Alien3), Graham Greene, (Dances With Wolves, Die Hard with a Vengeance), Irene Bedard (Pocahontas), Michael Mosley (Sirens), Derek Phillips (42, Friday Night Lights), Lee Tergesen (Oz), Madchen Amick (Twin Peaks), Parker Stevenson (The Hardy Boys, Baywatch) and Peter Stormare (Fargo, The Big Lebowski). Weller also directed the episode, “Wanted Man,” in which he guest stars.

Marc Alan Fishman: Iron Man Invented Ultron!

Did you see it? Did ya did ya did ya? The latest trailer to the future billion-dollar-blockbuster-to-be <a href=”

Avengers 2: Age of Ultron didn’t dance around the revisionist history of the cinematic 616. Ultron, once the product of Dr. Hank Pym – of Ant Man fame, don’t you know – has been shifted to the fatherly arms of one Tony Stark.

Now, the movie isn’t out yet, and I’ve abstained for seeking any real spoilers (that the trailer didn’t spoil itself). For all I know, Tony “invented” it the same way Microsoft invented the Zune. But, let’s just assume that in the world of Joss Whedon’s Marvelverse, Tony Stark did as he said: he attempted to create a solution to the ails of the world… and in doing so, created a would-be destructor instead. Simply put, this is a brilliant move by the boardroom of Mickey Mouse. Old school fans be damned.

An old adage I was taught in screenwriting class was that “you don’t put a gun on the table if you don’t plan on firing it.” The idea being that storytelling in a restricted amount of time (like a 150 minute movie) means sometimes having to consolidate resources. And while I’m sure I could have my ear talked off by someone older than me on the rich history of Pym’s creation of the aforementioned villain, it’d fall on deaf ears. The biggest reason: the story thus far in the Marvel movies has wonderfully built to this outcome.

Take a trip through Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Avengers, and Iron Man 3. The genesis to the Marvel Studios empire was built on the back of Anthony Stark: war-monger, philanthropist, martyr. It makes complete sense coming out of Avengers and Iron Man 3 that Tony would feel compelled to create a machine to solve the world’s problems. And it’d make even more sense he’d imbue it with a bit of his own panache. Any decent scientist will tell you the man who could invent Jarvis as presented is more than capable of creating the AI that wants to end humanity in order to save it. No one builds a monologuing AI better than Tony “Poke the Hulk in the Tuccus” Stark.

What I love even more than the choice to saddle Tony with the idea for Ultron is the potential stories that spin out of it. Akin to Grant Morrison’s astounding Tower of Babel arc in JLA, here the biggest threat to the Avengers (and the world at large) isn’t the rampaging id, alien demi-god, or right-wing cyclops… it’s the narcissist futurist. And given the name drop of Captain America: Civil War and the leaked stories of Tony’s appearance in it, it doesn’t take much brain power to see that Captain America may end up opposite his teammate over something as trivial as potentially almost ending the world. Plus, Tony also sorta created Whiplash and a fire-breathing Guy Pearce. If that’s not enough to go to war, then I don’t know my politics.

Beyond Cap there’s potential steam to be blown off by countless others. And what of Tony’s Science Bro, Dr. Banner? Maybe he’ll be more sympathetic to a man trying to quell the beasts of the world and messing up. And what of Black Widow or Hawkeye? One would imagine they aren’t ones to choose sides quickly. And then there is S.H.I.E.L.D. and all of that potential mess.

Whedon’s recent interviews have all beleaguered the point that with this sequel the story is decidedly more insular than the previous iteration. Avengers pretty much charged out of the gate swinging, and there was hardly time for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to fraternize. Those critics devoid of our fanboy hearts saw the coming together of the menagerie of complex costume choices as being inherently explosive.

In simpler terms, put that many type-A personalities on one giant flying fortress and you were bound to have an alien invasion and the near destruction of New York City. Of course we’d all beg to differ, but the outsiders have a point. And it all comes back to Tony.

At the end of Iron Man we were introduced to the concept of the superteam – a­­nd the tin man was clearly at the core of it. When Tony stepped on the Triskelion, he treated it as if he owned it. And after he illegally downloaded all the secret files within, in a way he did. And he was quick to reveal to his fellow Avengers how secretive and potentially damning their would-be employers were. Forever the smartest man in the world… doomed to see his biggest ideas twisted into death and destruction. Tony Stark is karma’s bitch.

And Avengers 2 will be amazing because of it.

 

The Point Radio: DIG & THE RETURNED More Must See TV

Two more additions to your TV Must See list should be the USA multi-part event, DIG and the much anticipated remake of the acclaimed French thriller, THE RETURNED on A&E. We talk to the producers and cast of DIG about how they grew their story, then actor Mark Pellegrino explains why all it took was Carlton Cuse to get him onboard for THE RETURNED.

BATES MOTEL opens up for season three in a few days, and Main Mama, Vera Farmiga, tells us just how far the show will go this time – right here in just a few days.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Shout! TV Adds Stingray, Kentucky Fried Movie, & The Goode Family

stingray-e1425650569201-5558149Shout! Factory TV, now in its second month, has added three more properties to their growing library of streaming content. These include Gerry Anderson’s Stingray, the Supermarionation series from the mid-1960s, the animated Goode Family, and the 1970s comedy Kentucky Fried Movie.

Shout! Factory TV is a premiere digital entertainment streaming service that brings timeless and contemporary cult favorites to pop culture fans. With a uniquely curated entertainment library, the channel offers an unrivaled blend of cult TV shows, movies, comedy, original specials and more – presenting an exciting entertainment alternative to other services.

Shout! Factory TV is available through any browser and has a Roku app.

THE GOODE FAMILY (All 13 episodes)

The Goode Family, from executive producers Mike Judge (King of the Hill, Beavis and Butt-head, Office Space) and John Altschuler & Dave Krinsky (King of the Hill, Blades of Glory), comes to Shout! Factory TV this March.

A hilarious skewering of our better natures, The Goode Family stars Mike Judge, Nancy Carell (The Office), Linda Cardellini (Freaks And Geeks) and Brian Doyle-Murray (Get A Life) with special guest stars Kevin Nealon, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Richter, Johnny Knoxville, Laraine Newman, Julia Sweeney, Elvis Costello, Alyson Hannigan, Dax Shepard and more!

Meet Gerald and Helen Goode, a couple who live by the motto WWAGD (“What Would Al Gore Do?”). Gerald, a college administrator, and Helen, a community activist, are determined to obliterate their carbon footprint on the planet: They’re zealous vegans, they drive a hybrid, and they recycle everything possible. Even the family dog, Che, is vegan. In the words of Helen, all the Goodes want to do is buy organic apples and call minorities by their politically correct names. But despite their best efforts, something always goes haywire with their plans. With standards always changing, no matter how hard you try to be good, it’s virtually impossible these days . . . especially for the Goode family.

Throughout the 13 episodes, the family adopts a bizarre animal named Gutterball, tags a clean park to experience the joy of cleaning up graffiti, take embarrassing pictures of at-risk kids that get them beat up by their gang-banger friends, get in a turf war with an Aryan prison work-gang while doing a highway cleanup, and much, much more.

GERRY ANDERSON’S STINGRAY (featuring 6 hand-picked episodes)

Battle stations! Join the World Aquanaut Security Patrol in a riptide of retro TV when the sci-fi adventure series Stingray is released on Shout! Factory TV.  Created by the television pioneers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (Thunderbirds, Space: 1999), six hand-picked episodes of the Supermarionation classic are coming to the streaming service only for the month of March. Stingray’s appearance on Shout! Factory TV marks the start of a lineup of exciting limited engagements for Gerry Anderson Supermarionation series.

The flagship of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (W.A.S.P.), Stingray is the world’s most highly sophisticated submarine, capable of speeds of over 600 knots and the ability to submerge anywhere on the Earth’s ocean floor. Under the command of the square-jawed and heroic Captain Troy Tempest, Stingray explores the most treacherous depths of our waters and protects the world from the perils that lurk undersea.

KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE (Evan C. Kim, Bong Soo Han, Bill Bixby)

Directed by the legendary John Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers), The Kentucky Fried Movie features a lewd, loosely connected collection of skits that spoof blaxploitation films, news shows, TV commercials, kung fu flicks and more!

The original take-off cult classic from the highly successful team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker (Airplane, The Naked Gun), this “uproariously funny [film]” (TV Guide) launched a thousand laughs and serves as a precursor to the raunch-fests of the ‘80s and the blockbuster success of the Farrelly Brothers films.

 

Including well-known stars such as Bill Bixby, Donald Sutherland, Tony Dow, George Lazenby and Henry Gibson, this one-of-a-kind film features over 22 hilarious segments including “Cleopatra Schwartz,” “Catholic High School Girls In Trouble,” “A Fistful Of Yen” and more!

Whether reliving childhood memories or discovering television series, movies and comedy specials for the first time, SHOUT! FACTORY TV will provide an immersive, high-quality viewing experience across a wide variety of screens and platforms, online at ShoutFactoryTV.com and on smartphone devices, tablets and connected TV, with an initial rollout on Roku.

SHOUT! FACTORY TV’s programming leverages a distinctive library of pop culture-defining entertainment curated from Shout! Factory, Westchester Films, Timeless Media Group, Scream Factory, major studios, independent producers and other sources from around the world.

The Law Is A Ass

BOB INGERSOLL: The Law Is A Ass #348: THE THING IS AN ESCAPED CRUSADER

32761dcd7454c1bac073e381ccbf841a_mFirst a show of hands, how many of you think the Puppet Master is dead?

No, I mean really dead. Sure Puppet Master’s always been a second-tier villain. After all, anyone who had access to his radioactive clay and a grade school art class could duplicate his powers. But how many think he’s really never-coming-back-from-the-dead dead?

Probably the same number of people who think that the Thing  really killed him. However, as things sit in Fantastic Four v5 #13, Thing was sitting in Ryker’s Island waiting trial for murdering Puppet Master. Until Thing recruited his own version of the Impossible Mission Force and broke out of prison.

Step One: Thing met with his lawyer, She-Hulk. Step Two: Ant-Man shrank down to subatomic size so he could navigate along the wiring of Ryker’s Island and use a pulse bomb to shut down the cell cubes and power dampeners that Ryker’s used to keep its super-powered inmates under control. Step Three: Sandman used his sand powers to hamper the efforts of any of the other inmates who tried to escape during the power outage. Step Four: Thing and Sandman ran along one of the prison’s supply tunnels to the prison wall. Step Five: She-Hulk and Darla Deering  – who was wearing her Miss Thing exoskeleton – knocked down the wall from the outside, because Thing’s strength hadn’t returned to full power yet. Step Six: They all went outside, where Medusa and the Inhumans waited with an airship which flew them to safety. Thing, why’d you stop there? Six more steps and you could have had an intervention.

The whole operation was a big success, although Sandman wasn’t always sure it would be. Still, he joined anyway. “What’s the worst they can do if it fails? Send me to prison?”

Well, yes, that’s exactly what they can do to you.

Escape is a crime in New York. According to New York Penal Law § 205.15 when a person charged with, or convicted of, a felony escapes from a detention facility that’s escape in the first degree. Thing was charged with murder. Sandman had been convicted of a felony – several, in fact. Both escaped from a detention center. Nuff said? Escape in the first degree is a class D felony, punishable by up to seven years in prison.

So yes, Sandman, they can they send you to prison. But it’s not the worst they can do.

Most judges’ view on escape is dimmer than a ten-watt bulb. Judges tend to sentence people convicted of escape consecutively to whatever sentence the criminal escaped from. So the worst isn’t that they’ll send you back to prison. The worst is that they’ll send you back to prison for even longer.

And it’s not like She-Hulk, Ant-Man, or Darla Deering would get off scot free. N.Y.P.L. § 115.08 calls helping a person to commit a crime criminal facilitation in the fourth degree. In addition, N.Y.P.L. § 105.05 says a person is guilty of conspiracy in the fifth degree when he or she agrees with one or more persons to engage in a felony.

Okay, both of these crimes are Class A misdemeanors so the possible sentence is anything up to one year. It may not be the seven years Sandman’s facing, but give them one year on each crime, run those sentences consecutively, and that’s two years. That’s more time than Animal Practice got and Animal Practice was a crime against humanity.

(BTW, I left out Medusa and the Inhumans, because they might have diplomatic immunity. I’m not sure what the Inhumans’ diplomatic status is. Just as I’m not sure what the status of their home city Attilan is other than blown up.)

Oh yeah, She-Hulk also joked about getting disbarred for her involvement in the escape. Not a joke, Shulky. Look at what New York did to Matt Murdock. If they catch you, they’ll disbar you, too. Then you can laugh all the way to the bank. The blood bank. Because you’ll be selling your blood to earn grocery money.

Then there’s Thing. Like Sandman, he’d be facing seven years for escape. Unlike Sandman, he wouldn’t have any underlying sentences that his seven years could be stacked on consecutively. But seven years is still a long time. Still, seven years in comic-book time is an eternity.

Which brings up an interesting question. In books, comic books, TV shows and movies, prisoners who are wrongly accused of a crime frequently escape in order to prove their innocence.  Richard Kimble escaped more times than Harry Houdini on tour. And once they prove their innocence, everything is hunky dory. They’re never prosecuted for escape, even though the escape charges would still exist, even if they were actually innocent of the other crime for which they had been arrested.

Do fictional prosecutors feel the innocent people suffered enough by being charged with a crime they didn’t commit so don’t bother charging them with a crime they actually did commit? I say fictional, because I certainly never met find any real-life prosecutors who felt that way back when I was practicing. Those prosecutors tended to press charges.

See, escapees escape from a prison or detention center or police custody. The guards, correction officers and police tend to be embarrassed when escapes occur on their watch. So they try to discourage escape, by making sure prosecutors file escape charges on anyone who escapes. That other detainees won’t get the same idea.

But that’s not how it’s going to happen. The Thing will be exonerated. Then neither he nor any of the people who helped him escape will be prosecuted. And they’ll all live happily ever after.

Except Sandman. Him they’ll prosecute.

Martha Thomases: Is Comics Distribution Sexy?

comic-book-guy-stan-lee-4021265One of the most important but least sexy aspects of the comic book business is distribution. The people who get the comic books from the printer and then send them to your local comic book stores don’t have that aura of imagination we associate with artists and writers. They aren’t publicly literate, like editors and publishers.

(Note: I’m only talking about perceptions here. I know a bunch of people who work in distribution, and they are at least as interesting and varied as any other group of people.)

The first distributors I met were the ones who agreed to take on Comedy Magazine in 1980. The mix included those who specialized in newsstands and those who were more specialty oriented. The specialty mix included not just comic books but also zines and art magazines (we were an art magazine). Some of those became direct market distributors.

Then ten years went by, and I didn’t think about distribution much at all.

When I worked at DC, there were a bunch of direct market distributors. Some were regional. A few were not. They competed against each other. They would pit one publisher against another in an attempt to get more favorable deals. Publishers would do the same to them.

And then, there was only Diamond.

Mimi Cruz, the owner of Night Flight Comics in Salt Lake City, recently wrote an article about how frustrating it is to deal with Diamond. She talks about books that are ordered and never arrive, books that aren’t ordered but show up anyway, books that arrive damaged, and books that are late.

Distributors are only human, and humans make mistakes. We should be understanding of each other. However, one would think that at a time when print media are considered to be endangered species, that maybe self-interest would motivate Diamond to provide better (and therefore more profitable) service. Books that never get on the shelves never get sold. Mistakes that don’t get corrected cost everybody money.

And there is certainly money to be made. Brian Hibbs recently analyzed the most recent data from BookScan, which shows that graphic novel sales have risen more than 17 percent in bookstores. Yes, that’s a category of print media, on paper, with sales growing in the bookstore market. If print isn’t yet dead, that is in no small part due to stories told in pictures.

Savvy comic book stores already order books through book distributors as well as direct market distributors. The discounts may be less attractive, but the books are in stock and, sometimes, returnable if they can’t be sold. If Diamond has a bad week, the store can still get product on the shelves. There will still be new covers to attract attention.

I don’t really have a suggestion (other than, “Everybody! Get your shit together!”). I don’t know that more competition in the direct market would make everyone more efficient. I don’t know if investing in state-of-the-art tech would make a difference. I don’t know if there are things that we, as customers, can do to help.

I just know that when I go to a comic book store, I want to see the new books, and the old books, and books that sit there, quietly, waiting for me to find them.

 

Tweeks: Check out LBCE

tumblr_nje9nji74e1suu128o1_500-2502569On February 28th & March 1st, we attended the Long Beach Comic Expo in Southern California.  It’s the spring sister event to the Long Beach Comic Con.  In their 6th year, they have expanded the expo into a bigger hall and added more guests.  Was it more fun?  We think so.  In this week’s video we’ll show you why.

We also chat with Marvel artist John Cheung about his A-Force cover and find some great age appropriate new comics.

Dennis O’Neil: Arrow and Bat

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice • Robert Frost

All you climate change doubters may now put on your dunce caps and leave. Don’t forget to shovel the walk on your way out.

…But where were we? Ah yes, where we often are, on opposite sides of a time gap. I’m writing here, you’re reading there. I suppose we can deal with it.

We’re looking ahead, you and I, to the forthcoming Daredevil television presentation, to be streamed on the increasingly diverse and interesting Netflix. Might be interesting. Might surpass the Ben Affleck movie Daredevil of a few years back, which may not have been everyone’s favorite entertainment. (I don’t have an opinion about it. Really, I don’t!) I see that Vincent D’Onofrio has gotten the job of being veteran DD baddie, The Kingpin, which seems to be good casting; let us not forget that Mr. D’Onofrio played a giant bug in the first Men in Black flick, so a corpulent gangster shouldn’t be a stretch for him.

What else am I looking forward to? (For you, it’s already past.)

Well, for one thin, the fate of poor Oliver Queen – other-named Arrow – last seen kneeling before the sinister Ras Al Ghul, a helpless captive. Ras stabbed him with a sword and kicked him off a mountain a while back, so is Ollie doomed to suffer a similar fate, perhaps again administered by a Ras who may have gotten a bit better at hero slaying? Nope. Ras is trying to recruit him into Ras’s criminal organization, The League of Assassins. (Good pay? Good benefits?)

This is not the first time Ras has gone hero-trolling. In the long ago when he was a mere comic book character, before being incarnated as a mega-movie star and a continuing presence in Arrow Ras made a similar move on Batman, sweetening the deal by suggesting that Bats and Ras’s daughter Talia might become an item and, yes indeedy, Talia would make a splendid trophy wife if she could just get past her daddy issues. Bats refused both job and lady and lived to fight another day but who knows what Ollie will do? (Well, actually, at this point, a lot of people. All those writers and actors and technicians…)

I like how our TV brethren are adapting some Batman tropes for Arrow. It’s a good match of characters: both the bat and the arrow are human-scaled, depending on skill and perseverance and motivation rather than some acquired superpower, and both are burdened with a tragic past. Since I prefer such characters I’ve always liked working on these two when I was a laboring scripter. Consider that an admission of bias.

Ras al Ghul, as some of you know, is a twisted idealist who wants to save the world – on his own terms, using his own methods, which are, to put it mildly, draconian. Pure fiction. But I look out at the snow and remember the savage winter which is not yet gone, and learn of the escalating barbarity in the middle east, and I wonder: Could there be a Ras?

But no, the reality is simpler and sadder, well expressed by Pogo the Possum: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

 

Mike Gold: Archie – WTF?

I know it says “Dark Circle” on the cover. In the past the cover has said “Red Circle” and before that “Archie” and before that “MLJ.” But it’s all Archie Comics to me, and I mean that as a compliment.

I think their first “Dark Circle” comic book was The Fox, by Dean Haspiel and Mark Waid. I loved it. I say “I think” because comics publishers do reboots faster than elves make shoes. Maybe the next Fox by Haspiel and Waid will restart the series again. But, for conversation’s sake, let’s say last week’s Black Hood #1 by Duane Swierczynski and Michael Gaydos was the second Dark Circle title.

And that’s where I got confused.

First, for the record, I liked this latest Black Hood. Like most contemporary comics, there wasn’t enough story in the first issue for me to make a real commitment, but I enjoyed what I read, deployed some clever concepts, and I look forward to the next issue. I can’t say that about a lot of costumed superhero comics these days.

But… well… damn… it’s still an Archie Comic. It says so right there on the copyright notice. And it was Archie Comics (as opposed to “Archie comics”) that heralded “approved reading.” It was Archie’s cofounder John Goldwater who created the Comics Code. In fact, after all the other publishers dropped the Code, Archie was the last publisher at the table. Briefly. They drank the last survivor’s wine and dropped out. That was in 2011.

I started reading comics about the time the Code came along, so forgive me when I say I’m a bit taken aback when I read an Archie Comic and encounter the word “asshole” twice, “shit” three times, and “fuck” seven times.

Yes, I counted.

Don’t get me wrong. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using such language. It’s been commonplace for a long time, and using the real words is much better than using stupid euphemisms that simply implant the censored word into the reader’s mind anyway. Fuck hypocrisy!

But… damn… it’s an Archie Comic! Does this mean they’re going to hire S. Clay Wilson for their Fly-Girl title? Hey, that would be great!

But it does make me wonder. Archie Comics is about to reboot Archie comics with the melodious words of Mark Waid. How many cans of Tree Frog Beer can Reggie Mantle chug? And what’s the real reason why they call Forsythe Pendleton Jones III… Jughead?

Maybe they’ll give a new answer to the time-old question “Are you a Betty, or a Veronica?”

 

The Point Radio: A Different Path For THE FOLLOWING

Season three of THE FOLLOWING has kicked off and everyone wants to know just what’s ahead for Ryan Hardy. The man who can answer that best is Kevin Bacon, and he talks about why this season is so unique for him and the show. Plus former WWE Superstar Alberto DelRio is now Alberto El Patron and heading up the crew of LUCHA UNDERGROUND on ElRey. He talks about the rich history off wrestling in his native land and just why thing went south at The WWE.

The new USA Event Series DIG is about to begin and we take you to the set for an exclusive you’ll only here with us in just a few days.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

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