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Mon Oct 5, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Snow White' on Blu-ray
Truth be told, I was never a big fan of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The basic children’s fairy tale was simplified for the 1937 film, starting with the excising of Snow’s mother in favor of just presenting the wicked stepmother. When the Queen tries to do away with Snow White, it took her three attempts which Walt cut down to just the poisoned apple. On the other hand, Walt’s idea of having the Prince’s kiss wake her up is superior to a piece of apple being dislodged from her throat. It would have been nice if the Queen was forced to watch her step-daughter happily marry the Prince, wearing red-hot iron shoes as her punishment.
Wisely, Walt simplified the story to fit it in the constraints of then-current film-making. Additionally, he played up the part of the Seven Dwarfs, giving each a distinctive personality that have become memorable. In the story, after she sought shelter in their home, they agreed to let her stay with them in exchange for her services as cook, maid, and, laundress. Instead, Snow here takes it upon herself to do the cleaning first, ingratiating herself to the dwarfs before meeting them. Of course, that allows for the animators to let the forest creatures come to her aid set to song.
Still, it’s a charming story, simply told; an experiment that paid off handsomely, catapulting Walt’s studio ahead of all other animators.
Now, the studios’ crown jewel is coming to Blu-ray, going on sale tomorrow. The Blu-ray edition has two discs, one for the film and one for the copious extras. Also included is a standard DVD version so this combo pack is the one to buy for now and the future. While the standard disc contains extras, the supplemental Blu-ray disc has them and much more.
The original film has been meticulously restored and the lush color and design has never looked better. The sound is crisp and the imagery a wonder. Clearly, this is the best the film has ever looked.
Blu-ray owners will enjoy having the Magic Mirror act as the Disney Smart Navigation interface. The mirror guides you through both discs and has enough intelligence ot know if you’ve played this before and whether to resume where you left off. BD Live adds to his functionality and practical use such as time and weather information. If you don’t like the letterbox bars, you can switch to Disney View which features new art extensions prepared by Toby Bluth, complete with some new information about their creation.
Extras include Backstage Disney: Hyperion Studios, an exhaustive look at the original home for Disney and his animation team complete with virtual tour of the first house that Walt built. A ton of archival material has been unearthed for presentation to diehard fans with every department well represented. Along the way you will watch two Silly Symphony cartoons from the early days and be treated to commentary and tours from current animators including Pixar’s Andrew Stanton. You learn much about how it all began through a series of short features but it requires effort to poke and prod through every doorway and department within the virtual studio.
Snow White gets its due in “The One That Started It All” that offers up some new information and insights.
One of the more interesting featurettes is Snow White Returns. Recently uncovered archival material indicates Walt may have been toying with a sequel and we spent nearly 9 minutes reviewing the data. Deleted scenes include the “Soup Eating Sequence” and the “Bed Building Sequence”.
Resurrected from previous editions are “Dopey’s Wild Mine Ride” game, “Heigh-Ho”, a karaoke sing-along and “Disney Through the Decades”, “Animation Voice Talent” (featuring Caselotti). Unfortunately, some of the 2001 edition features are absent.
This belongs in every videophile’s library and under the Christmas tree of children from coast to coast. The charm and whimsy endures as witnessed in this beautiful collection.
Mon Oct 5, 2009 — by Alexandra Honigsberg
New York Anime Festival 2009 Wrap-up
Picture a world where people gather and interact in joy and harmony, where groups of gaily-clad youths break into spontaneous song and dance at regular intervals, where spontaneous conga lines of diverse peoples stretch for blocks and wind through the market stalls, where merchants sell and people buy with easy affability and business is brisk, where people debate the topics of the day with great thoughtfulness and passion and the powers-that-be listen to the people-at-large. The Twilight Zone? Are you some sort of philosopher, or something? Well…no and yes. I just spent a weekend at my first New York Anime Festival at the Javitz Center in Manhattan and I found myself intermittently amused, bemused, overwhelmed, and overjoyed.
Think about it. Everyone has watched an animated something in their lifetime, no matter how old. From Looney Tunes to Disney to Hanna-Barbera to Pixar, we’ve experienced this media and it has been used for everything from pure entertainment to social commentary. Much of what was seen in America during the ‘60s and ‘70s was actually from Japan – Speed Racer, Kimba the White Lion, Astro Boy, Gigantor, Tobor the 8th Man – some of which are now known to a new generation only via CGI-heavy feature films. Yet this is far from past-tense kiddie land. With the global economy, the on-line connecting of the worlds, and all the ways we cross-pollinate each other’s cultures, just as Americans seem to be everywhere, so are the Japanese and the growing connections between East and West, from McDonald’s to manga.
My professional friends, The Anime Chicks, brought me into the anime fold only about three years ago with Rose of Versailles and The Legend of Basara, and a wise one passed along to me the original Full Metal Alchemist (also see subbed on hulu and other sites the new Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, now up to ep 26 in Japan, which follows the manga more closely as anime and manga had diverged with the common delays between the two medias), which is sometimes too great for words and, as I’ve happily discovered, it’s consistently named in the top 5 anime ever in many fan and professional polls. This encouraged me to explore more: Death Note, Trinity Blood and, God help me, the never-ending Bleach, all enabled by my colleagues, our very own Scooby Gang. This lead to Saturday all-nighters on Cartoon Network with Moribito, Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Gig, Code Geass: LeLouche of the Rebellion, Blood+, Big O (2nd season), and Cowboy BeBop.
Mon Oct 5, 2009 — by Mike Raub
The Point Radio: Robert Carlyle On Life At The STARGATE
Plus A Great Weekend To Be A Zombie!
There's more on STARGATE UNIVERSE including Robert Carlyle explaining why he took a dive intp series television, and Ming Nah on playing one of the few openly gay characters in SF TV. Plus ZOMBIELAND jumps to the top of the Box Office, while STAR TREK and WOLVERINE slip off the chart. 
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Mon Oct 5, 2009 — by Matthew Weinberger
Superman's powers explained and DiDio on Outsiders: ComicMix Quick Picks for 10/5/09
It's been a slow few days in comicsylvania, so here's a roundup of the last few days:
- Stellan Skarsgård (Bootstrap Bill in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) joins the Thor cast. Says it all, really, especially since no one will say what part he's playing.
- A unified theory of Superman's powers. Warning: may blow your mind.
- Rob Liefeld turned 42 on Saturday. Hooray!
- From the inaugural Long Beach Comic Con: DC Comics executive editor Dan DiDio is the new writer on troubled team title The Outsiders, with Philip Tan on art.
- Also from LBCC (and the horse's mouth), Geoff Johns will be writing a Wally West backup feature for the upcoming Flash relaunch as well as the main Barry Allen-centric story.
- An all-new, all-awesome picture of Robert Downey Jr. wearing the Iron Man armor from the upcoming sequel has surfaced. The full pic is at the link.
Sun Oct 4, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Superman/Batman: Public Enemies'
For the last 25-30 years, writers and artists have been having a wonderful time contrasting the differences between Superman and Batman. Prior to that, they were both happy-go-lucky super-heroes, brothers-in-arms with nary a problem twixt them. The team of Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness really explored the dichotomy between the icons in Superman/Batman, the modern day version of World’s Finest Comics. Their opening story arc, “Public Enemies”, was a major turning point in the DCU, bringing down the curtain on one set of stories and kick starting threads that played out across the line for several years.Any storyline that involved, could not possibly be well-adapted to an animated feature considering the lack of context most viewers would need to have. As a result, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies the direct-to-DVD release from Warner Premier, now on sale, had to make some modifications. Unfortunately, they were not all for the better.
On the plus side, there are some nice bits between Superman and Power Girl who is the only other character in the story to possess a personality. The story moves at a nice clip and showcases both heroes fairly well, It’s a true pleasure to have Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy voicing the major heroes with Clancy Brown back as the icy Lex Luthor. The animators also do a fine job taking McGuiness’ pumped up style and bringing it alive.
A major plus is that this continues a line of animated features based on today’s DC Comics, demonstrating that good characterization, good storytelling and mature themes can be presented in an entertaining manner for fans of all ages. Yes it’s violent and yes the attempts to destroy, kill and maim the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel aren’t positive themes, but good continues to triumph over evil, working up a sweat to do so.
WIth Luthor as president, it changes the playing field in the struggle between Lex and Superman. Suddenly, as Commander in Chief, he possesses even greater resources to call upon and even uses the Oval Office to sway public opinion. A kryptonite meteor coming to Earth? Must be affecting Superman so he can no longer be trusted. The changed dynamic means battling Luthor has to change, too, and that's where the comic story works better than the film, which keeps things on the all-out-action level.
Loeb erred in many of the selections he made among the heroes and villains cobbled together to oppose the World’s Finest duo. For example, everyone knows Major Force is a murdering sociopath and the team should have rejected working alongside him. Starfire, an alien princess, and Katana are not American citizens and shouldn’t have answered President Luthor’s call. Similarly, when Captain Marvel shows up to duke it out, Superman brings up the wisdom of Solomon which should have counseled the good Captain to avoid this political mess. The animators also picked an overly broad collection of villains to arrive, controlled by Gorilla Grodd. They all got stopped way too easily, diminishing the threat any one of them possessed.The movie feels big because of the cast and I wish there were more strong voices such as CCH Pounder’s Amanda Waller. It was probably a mistake for Alison Mack to be Power Girl because I kept thinking Chloe Sullivan.
The biggest oops was not having the Superman and Batman Families come to the heroes’ aid, demonstrating their contrasting styles. I’d have much preferred keeping it, ahem, all in the family, in lieu of the mindless slugfests at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Finally, there’s the notion that this genius Japanese kid was the only one on Earth able to construct a rocket able to stop the mammoth kryptonite meteor. Let’s see, there are various magicians, three Green Lanterns, and so on. And in the film’s case, once the meteor is blown up, there’s nary a mention of what became of the now tiny chunks of kryptonite that were now hurtling towards Earth and other planets in the solar system. At least a line of dialogue should have covered that. At 67 minutes, there was definitely room to smooth over the story points.
Overall, though, this is a strong offering and fun to watch.
The extras on the Standard edition and the DVD include the usual assortment of trailers for other DCU videos, including the next one, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, coming in 2010. The Blackest Night featurette also appears. “A Test of Minds: Superman and Batman” dos a nice job exploring the comic book relationship between the heroes while “Dinner with DC: With Special Guest Kevin Conroy” features the voice actor Voice Director Andrea Romano, Executive Producer Bruce Timm and DC’s overseer Gregory Noveck chatting the animation crew about adapting the film. Two Batman-featured episodes from Timm’s Superman: The Animated Series round out the disc. You have until September 30, 2010 to take advantage of the digital copy download, with no disc to aid you.
Sat Oct 3, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'Star Trek: TOS' Season 2 on Blu-ray
After a rocky first season that ended with the letter writing campaign to save Star Trek from cancellation, the second season opened in a horrible Friday night time slot but was a stronger series. Creator Gene Roddenberry continued to oversee everything as an Executive Producer but John Meredith Lucas took over as the line producer, aided by Roddenberry’s former secretary, D.C. Fontana becoming the script consultant. These changes made for a strong start as witnessed on Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2, now out on Blu-ray from Paramount Home Video.Things had started to gel for the series as the characters became more sharply defined and the writers began to tailor the by-play accordingly. The backstory grew stronger so it was clear what the United Federation of Planets was all about and that the starship Enterprise was truly exploring space and fought only when necessary.
The season opened with “Amok Time”, written by SF great Theodore Sturgeon and explored Vulcan and Spock’s place among his people. It’s a great opening but also one that acknowledged the rising popularity of the character and Leonard Nimoy, placing him ahead of star William Shatner.
Roddenberry and Lucas began exploring more of Spock’s backstory, starting with “Amok Time” but later in “Journey to Babel” which memorably introduced his parents. Fortunately, attention was paid to others, as well. Bowing to criticism from Pravda, the Russian navigator Pavel Chekov joined the crew, ending the rotating supernumerary opposite Helmsman Sulu. With George Takei’s work on The Green Berets prolonged, Chekov got plenty of screen time, much to Takei’s regret and Walter Koenig’s delight.
Continue reading Review: 'Star Trek: TOS' Season 2 on Blu-ray ›
Fri Oct 2, 2009 — by Mike Raub
The Point Radio: STARGATE UNIVERSE Danger & Sex In Space
Plus John Cho FLASHES FORWARD to The Enterprise
STARGATE UNIVERSE (SyFy Channel's next step in the SG francise) debuts tonight with a new cast and a definite new direction. We begin our backstage access today as the cast explains just what they have to do to survive lost in the multi-verse (and it isn't playing video games) - plus John Cho talks about his future on not only FLASH FORWARD, but maybe back on The Enterprise or even The White Castle. 
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CLICK HERE TO LISTEN LIVE FOR FREE or go to GetThePointRadio for more including a connection for mobile phones including iPhone & Blackberrys
Fri Oct 2, 2009 — by Mike Gold
It's No New Comics Week
Oh Christmas/New Years, Where Is Thy Sting?
Back in the days before direct sales and specialty shops overwhelmed comic book sales, you couldn't find a new comic book on the newsstands to save your soul. The theory was, nobody buys magazines between Christmas and New Years Day, and even now "weekly" magazines like Time and Newsweek skip that week. The fact was, the newsstand distributors and shippers thought that would be a swell week to take off, so they did.
Well, those sing-along days are back. Diamond will not be shipping anything the week of December 30, 2009. Nada. Zippo. Nothing.
There's a bit of a difference between modern times and those thrilling days of yesteryear. Maybe the old mom and pop stores could survive selling Brylcream and Ipana, or maybe they'd take the week off as well. But today's comics shop owners can't afford to close down that week – yes, comic book selling is that marginal a business – and they've still got to pay the rent.
Expect a lot of in-store post-Christmas sales, which might be lucrative for those retailers whose customers get cash as holiday presents.
Fri Oct 2, 2009 — by Andrew Wheeler
Manga Friday: Supernatural Teens
Reviewing Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales: Sanctuary, Yokai Doctor, and Amefurashi
Where would comics be without the stories of young people with amazing powers? Oh, sure, you could cobble together a world canon of stories with no supernatural stuff at all, but it would have to be a masterpiece of the gerrymanderer’s art. And why would you want to – when you can have all of the moody, or conflicted, or ridiculously innocent teenagers with amazing abilities you ever thought of? Like the main characters of these three books, for example…
Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales, Volume 1: Sanctuary
Written by Melissa Marr; Art by
Xian Nu Studio
Tokyopop/HarperCollins, May 2009,
$12.99
Wicked Lovely is the name of a novel by Marr, and it also seems to be the umbrella title for her novels about teens and faeries (and teen faeries, and faerie teens) in the modern world. The novels seem to be about a girl named Aislinn – no self-respecting teen-novel heroine ever has a name like Doris or Mabel – and her travails in high school and the Faerie Courts. But this manga volume – it says on its back cover that it’s “manga,” if you don’t believe me, and never mind that it reads left-to-right and was written by an American – is set somewhere in the western desert, where once-mortal Rika lives quietly, trying to avoid both humans and the local faeries.
Rika was discovered and turned – not exactly “seduced and abandoned,” since she wasn’t able to give him what he wanted – many years ago by the Summer King, Keenan, who turns up early in this book to give an excuse for some backstory and to fail to get her to swear fealty to him. She refuses, of course – she’s solitary now, and happy that way. What does it matter if most of the solitary fay are nasty enough to make “mischievous” a very weak term to describe them?
But they’re just there for spice; this is a series for teenage girls, which means Rika has to see a cute boy – Jace, who paints, like she does – and save him from those nasty fay, who try to kill him for no good reason. He’s sweet and innocent enough to stare wide-eyed at her abilities – those nasty wild fay don’t give up, or there wouldn’t be a plot here other than “elf girl and artist boy meet cute and gaze into each other’s eyes,” – and the book is low-key enough that they’re just mildly kissing by the end. (Which seems awfully tame for a fairie who’s hundreds of years old.)
Wicked Lovely: Desert Tales: Sanctuary has too many colons in its title and a thin plot, but I have to expect that it’s just the kind of thing teen girls will want: a bit of angst, a wish to be alone that doesn’t actually lead to loneliness, and a cute boy that the girl gets to protect and pursue. I’m just twenty years too old and the wrong gender to appreciate it properly.Fri Oct 2, 2009 — by Glenn Hauman
Happy 50th Anniversary to 'The Twilight Zone'!
On this day in 1959, Rod Serling and CBS introduced us to a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a
dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the
middle ground between light and shadow, between science and
superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit
of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area
which we call... the Twilight Zone.
The Twilight Zone ran for five seasons on CBS, then entered the dimension of infinite reruns to this very day-- often with rerun marathons on July 4th and New Years Eve in local markets, a tradition that extends to its current home on the Syfy Channel. It won numerous Emmys and Writer's Guild awards and spawned two series revivals, a movie, a song by Golden Earring, and countless other homages, and may be one of the most influential shows to air on television.
If you're a fan, you can't do better than the DVD compilations
Thu Oct 1, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Review: 'High Moon' Volume One
High MoonDave Gallaher & Steve Ellis
DC Comics, 192 pages, $14.99
DC’s online imprint, Zuda Comics, has certainly been a hit or miss affair but when it hits, there’s a pleasure in discovering new talent or new concepts. While Bayou was a breakout hit, the most consistent entry remains High Moon, written by former ComicMix contributor Dave Gallaher, illustrated by Steve Ellis and lettered by Scott O. Brown.
Gallaher had this notion for years but managed to earn one of the inaugural slots when Zuda went live in late 2007 and the strip won the first reader contest. It has since received plaudits from around the field and now DC is releasing the first three stories in a trade paperback.
The three stories comprising the first volume mix the western and horror genres with a dash of steampunk and overly, it’s a breezy, entertaining read. The focal point surrounds the Macgregor family, a line of detectives, currently working as a branch of the famed Pinkertons. Matthew Macgregor takes center stage in the first story while brother Tristan arrives for the second tale and then Tristan and Fergus deal with demons in the final tale. Linking all three, though, is Eddie Conroy a werewolf with a haunted past.
Each tale takes place in a different locale, starting with the drought-stricken Blest, Texas, then moving on to Ragged Rock, OK before concluding in South Dakota.
Across these stories are vampires, werewolves, demons, sexy Indians and a lot of atmosphere. We are given details in drips so reading the three stories in one sitting helps build the world of High Moon and it’s a nice place to visit. Gallaher’s dialogue is spare and distinct while Ellis works wonders with the static format of the Zuda reader, playing with page design when the action demands it. His use of color goes a long way towards giving the strip a nice atmosphere.
We could use a little more grounding in the time and place when these stories take place and what the ground rules are for the occult aspects but these are minor quibbles for what is a strong series which returns to the web with a fourth installment this fall.
Wed Sep 30, 2009 — by Andrew Wheeler
Fathers and Sons: reviews of Danica Novgorodoff's 'Refresh, Refresh' and 'The Big Kahn' by Neil Kleid and Nicolas Cinquegrani
I should start by quoting something weighty – the most obvious would be that old Tolstoy saw about happy and unhappy families – but let’s take that as written, shall we? Comics have given short shrift to families for the past seventy years – at least, the American comic-book industry has, though strip comics grew fat and bloated on the hijinks of aggressively “relatable” families for that long and longer.
Even the undergrounds – typically about countercultural types, who occasionally complain about their parents but try to avoid them as much as possible – and the modern alt-comics movement (Alienated Loners R us!) avoided family dynamics. Sure, there are exceptions, from Will Eisner to art spiegelman, but the average American comics protagonist is an orphan – or wishes he was.
Maybe that’s starting to change, or maybe I just have a couple of anomalies on my hand. Either way, today, I have two books where that isn’t the case – not to say that these dads might not be dead, absent, or problematic, but they’re definitely part of the story. And their sons care who, and what – and where – their fathers are.
Refresh, Refresh
A graphic novel by Danica
Novgorodoff, adapted from a screenplay by James Ponsoldt based on the story by
Benjamin Percy
First Second, October 2009,
$17.99
What do men do? For many in the comics reviewing world, that’s an easy question: men punch each other in the face. But they don’t have Refresh, Refresh in mind when they say that. This graphic novel is set in a small Oregon town, just a couple of years ago, where most of the adult men are off fighting with the Marines in Iraq. And their sons – mostly Cody and Josh and Gordon, three highschool-aged boys who are at the core of this particular story – talk about joining up when they’re old enough, or working in the local factory, or maybe even getting out.
But Refresh, Refresh is based on a literary short story, and if there’s one thing we all know, it’s that there’s no getting out of a story like that – it’s all doom and gloom until the moment-of-clarity ending. So this town is stifling and without any options, the boys drifting – from backyard boxing to underage drinking in bars to racing around on motorbikes and sleds – as they rebel without any fathers to drag them into line. (The narration – presumably taken from the original Percy story; I don’t want to blame Novgorodoff for any of it – is particularly heavy-handed in that area, such as this sequence from p.83: “We didn’t fully understand the reason our fathers were fighting. We only understood that they had to fight. ‘It’s all part of the game,’ my grandfather said. ‘It’s just the way it is.’ We could only cross our fingers and wish on stars and hit refresh, refresh, hoping they would return to us.”)
What they hit “refresh, refresh” on is their e-mail in-boxes; that scene recurs several times in the story. Oddly, though, it’s the only incursion of modern technology into a story that could otherwise be Vietnam-era. They don’t follow their fathers’ platoon on CNN.com or an Armed Forces website; don’t call each other on cellphones; don’t think about or track or seem to notice the war on TV or the Internet; even their laptops seem to be screwed down to tables, for all the moving they do.
Refresh, Refresh is a very traditional story about young men in small towns; I could probably quote half-a-dozen Bruce Springsteen songs on roughly the same topic, and with pretty much the same moral and tone. (And that’s without diving into the world of the realist short story, where kitchen-sink dramas almost require young men with promise to be squandered.) Novgorodoff tells this version with a bit too much self-conscious artistry – too many deer looking up at airplanes, too many of those explaining-the-theme narration boxes – but she keeps the focus tight and specific, on these three boys and their world, their choices and possibilities. A story like this is nearly always about badchoices, though, so it would be best to come to Refresh, Refresh with a MFA-teacher’s fatalism, and not expect anything so comic-booky as a happy ending for the boys who punch each other in the face.
Wed Sep 30, 2009 — by Matthew Weinberger
ComicMix Quick Picks: NY Anime Festival grows, comic sales hold, and Hugh Jackman doesn't stop the show
Get ready for a special
"still-recovering-from-fasting-on-Yom-Kippur" edition of ComicMix Quick
Picks. Yesterday was pretty busy, and here's a roundup of the stuff we didn't get to:
- New York Anime Festival attendance was up 16 percent from last year. And according to data from this past August, comic sales have held very steady, even through the econopocalypse. Are these signs of a recovering economy, or signs that our kinds of people just can't cut this stuff out of our budgets?
- Popular British football (that's soccer to us heathen Americans) comic strip Striker ended its 24-year run in British newspaper The Sun ended--without telling readers. Hilarity ensues.
- Marvel second-in-command Tom Brevoort explains why Alpha Flight seems to be unable to stick around for very long in their own series: "But when you drill down, the core concept of the series is based on geography, which is very limiting -- they're like the Avengers, but in Canada."
- Sam Rockwell, who's playing Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2, dropped some plot SPOILERS in an interview, if that's your thing. We'll say no more.
- Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig stopped a performance of their Broadway show "A Steady Rain" in the middle to chastise-- you guessed it-- someone who forgot to turn off their cell phone. After pissing off Wolverine and James Bond, it's a wonder the guy made it out of the theater alive.
- Heroes ratings continue to disappoint. Who wants to place bets on the exact date and time it gets canceled?
- Columbia Pictures just bought a spec script for a movie called Supermax, about a prison full of people with creepy superpowers. The problem is that they've also been developing Super Max, a vehicle for DC Comics hero Green Arrow, also about a prison for people with powers. Now, the rumor is that even if it gets a name change, the thematic similarities may kill the comic book-flavored movie in favor of the new one. How fair is that?
- Former Terminator Summer Glau has been upgraded from "Dollhouse guest star" to "Dollhouse regular cast." Joss Whedon's been wearing out his rolodex for the show's cast, huh?
Tue Sep 29, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
Media Short Takes
Olivia Wilde, who we adore on House and look forward to seeing in the sequel to Tron, will join The Ruins’ Jonathan Tucker in the cast of The Next Three Days, a thriller directed by Paul Haggis for Lionsgate. The cast already includes Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks, which is said to be the story of a woman (Banks) imprisoned for a murder she claims she didn't commit while her husband (Crowe) who tries to vindicate her.
The Wizards of Waverly Place, the popular Disney Channel series, has received an order for an additional eight episodes. Now in its third season, the show was awarded an Emmy this month in the children’s programming category. It also scored huge ratings when a feature-length version aired in August. It’s no surprise that the show has a rabid following with Disney raking in bucks from consumer products ranging from video games to books and even clothing lines.
Tue Sep 29, 2009 — by Robert Greenberger
'Terminator' Rights Once More in Question
Halcyon's Chapoter 11 Filing Causes Concern
Pity Skynet. They rule the world of the future but can’t seem to get it right in the present. Rights to the Terminator franchise have been handed from one company to another and now Halcyon Holding Group is undergoing Chapter 11 reorganization which will affect plans for the Terminator.
Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood reports that Halcyon has retained FTI Capital Advisors to help them determine the best course of reorganizing. The production entity wound up this way after a dispute erupted between them and Pacificor, a Santa Barbara-based hedge fund.
“Based on our extensive due diligence, we believe the value of the Terminator franchise alone is substantially greater than the $30 million Halcyon paid for it in 2007,” Kevin W. Shultz, Senior Managing Director of FTI Capital Advisors, said in statement. “In our view, Halcyon enjoys a wide variety of strategic options and we intend to explore them all.”
In addition to the still-popular Terminator, Halcyon has first-look rights to the complete works of Philip K. Dick.
Terminator: Salvation suffered from weak reviews and poor box office, hoping to rake in some fresh cash when the DVD is released December 1. Producers from the television version, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, continue to hope to continue the saga in some new manner, possibly as direct-to-video tales. The second season DVD set was released last week.
