Now that you got your Amazon gift certificates, you could do a lot wore than get the Superman Ultimate Collector’s Edition DVD set (Superman – The Movie, Superman II, Superman II – The Richard Donner Cut, Superman III, Superman IV – The Quest for Peace, and Superman Returns)
for only $25– that’s $75 off list. (And yes, if you click through and order here, you help keep the lights on here another day. :)
Then he heard a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low… then it started to grow.
But the sound wasn’t sad…
Why, this sounded merry.
It couldn’t be so… but it was merry. Very.
A very merry to you and yours.
In just a few days, BBC America premieres the first part of “End Of Time” which will see the final appearance of David Tennant as DOCTOR WHO. We sit down, not only with David, but also key creators Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner in the first part of our exclusive interview. Plus it’s OUR FIRST ANNIVERSARY and we end the season with a rumor about a SUPERGIRL movie…with Taylor Swift??
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If you didn’t catch this new production, you can really see the Pixar folks adding their sensibilities to Disney stuff. Enjoy.
The Blu-ray conversion process continued throughout the year and there’s something for everyone. As the hours dwindle towards Santa’s arrival, here’s a trio of family-friendly Blu-ray offerings that are perfect – as long as you don’t have these on standard DVD. Warner Home Video wisely released A Charlie Brown Christmas and Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas some weeks back, completing the hat trick with the Blu-ray debut of Horton Hears a Who!
These are basically the standard DVDs upgraded to Blu-ray so everything looks and sounds marvelous. All the standard DVD extras are still here so there’s little to compel you to upgrade, especially since the prices treat these like the full-length feature films when the reality is, these were thirty minute television specials.
None of the above robs the trio from their power to entertain. The Charlie Brown special, which has been collected in multiple DVD sets, remains the king of them all as it pokes fun at the commercialization of the holiday and Linus’ speech at the end refocuses attention to the spiritual side of the holiday. With Vince Guaraldi’s amazing jazz score, this remains the gold standard.
Also earning the gold is Chuck Jones, who brilliantly adapted Dr. Seuss Grinch. He buried his own art style in favor of bringing the book to life, adding all the right touches. Having Boris Karloff narrate was a stroke of genius and the original score and songs only added to the surreal qualities that we adore about Seuss.
This Horton is the 1970 version, which is a pretty fair adaptation. Also from Chuck Jones, it shows how cheap animation had gotten in the four years between his Grinch and Horton, as the cartoon looks more limited. The adaptation boasts the usual voice actors of the era including the wonderful Hans Conreid as Horton and the narrator; June Foray and Ravenscroft.
As Blu-rays, they all look pretty fine, notably The Grinch. The extras contain making of featurettes across the thee along with biographical notes on the cast and crew, and other bits and pieces. Best are the extra animated fare such as It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, the lesser known 1992 follow-up Peanuts Christmas special or the other animated Seuss tales Daisy-Head Mayzie and. Butter Battle Book. The Grinch has the annoying Phil Hartman history from TNT but makes up for it with a nice spotlight on singer Thurl Ravenscroft and composer Albert Hague. Horton also contains the 1994 special, In Search of Dr. Seuss, which is a loving portrait of the genius.
It should be noted that the specials come as combo sets complete with standard DVD and digital copy (Windows only). If you don’t own any version, this clearly is the one to get – just find the right sale.
One hundred and one years ago this Saturday, a black man shook the world and did what many believed to be impossible.
Today, his story is available in finer comic book retailers across America.
The Original Johnson, Book 1 is Trevor Von Eeden’s personal and heartfelt graphic
novel biography of Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight
champion of the world, international celebrity, and the most
controversial American of his time. This is the artistic achievement of
Trevor’s career,
more than four years in the making and worth every moment. We are proud to be able to make this book available to you.
For those of you who have been following it online, the printed edition is actually ahead of where the online edition is, so there’s additional incentive for you.
And yes, this makes an excellent gift for Christmas, Boxing Day (sorry) or the second day of Kwanzaa– because if there was ever a black man who embodied the principles of self-determination, it was John Arthur Johnson.
This was prompted by a Slashdot post, but consider:
It’s nearly the end of 2009.
If the original 1790 copyright
maximum term of 28 years was still in effect, everything that had been
published by 1981 would be now be in the public domain — which means most of the Marvel Universe up to Dazzler and the She-Hulk, The Omega Men, The Far Side, Bloom County, Captain Victory and The Greatest American Hero would be available for remixing and mashing up.
If the 1909 copyright
maximum term of 56 years (if renewed) were still in force, everything
published by 1953 would now be in the public domain, freeing the Phantom Stranger, Captain Comet, Peanuts, Frontline Combat, Forbidden Worlds and Tales From The Crypt. (Marvelman would kick free in 2010, as would Mad magazine.)
If the 1976 copyright act
term of 75 years still applied, everything
published by 1934 would now be in the public domain, including Doc Savage, Mandrake the Magician, Dick Tracy and Terry and the Pirates.
But thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, nothing in the US will go free until 2018, when 1923 works expire. (Assuming Congress doesn’t step in with a Copyright Extension Act of 2017. What are the odds?)
Now, this doesn’t mean that rights don’t revert to somebody– as we’ve discovered, rights to Superman and the like can revert to the original creators. But it’s fascinating to consider a world where anyone could write a story about Batman as easily as one can write a story about Dracula.
MGM Home Video has offered up thirteen different star-centered CD packs, all conveniently priced at $24.95 but savvy shoppers can find them for as little as $14.95. Each box set features four films from the studio’s vast library and neatly packages them together.
What you pay for in convenience, though, you lose in the rich DVD experience that many aficionados want from their home video. The films come with commentary and maybe the trailer but little else. So, if your recipient is a major fan of the films and/or stars, be warned.
Having said that, two that were sent for review, are pretty nice. The Clint Eastwood Star Collection offers up A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, and Hang ‘Em High. That’s 721 minutes of Clint in his spaghetti western days and the birth of a film icon. Oddly, A Fistful of Dollars and Hang ‘Em High come with widescreen versions on one-side and fullscreen on the other while the remaining duo are in standard widescreen,
Consider 1964’s A Fistful of Dollars, which effectively launched the careers of Eastwood, director Sergio Leone, and composer Ennio Morricone. This also was the first in the Man with No Name trilogy, a legendary everyman figure who has endured way beyond the films and even stars in his own comic book. The film was also a turning point in how westerns were made, beginning a new chapter for the then-tired genre.
While effectively a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, this film set up the standards of good versus evil as viewed through the prism of 1960s filmmaking, which had fewer restrictions than in previous decades and allowed the bad to be truly wicked and violent. There’s little doubt Eastwood’s silent, squinting figure inspired many a film knockoff and even contributed to the character of Jonah Hex (start making your comparisons when the Hex film opens next June). He had come a long way from Rawhide’s Rowdy Yates.
Four films in five years established Eastwood as a major actor and kept the genre vital, while inspiring a new generation of filmmakers to try new approaches to older material. You can certainly see it in the works of Coppola and even Lucas.
An odder assortment is the Frank Sinatra Star Collection which offers us Guys And Dolls, A Hole in the Head, Manchurian Candidate, and Sergeant’s 3 which are in no way thematically linked, just using Old Blue Eyes as the common denominator. All four films come only in widescreen and again with minimal extras.
I will admit to a fondness for Guys And Dolls and think the movie, flaws and all, is a delight to watch. Marlon Brando isn’t much of a singer but makes for a fine guy and the movie does give us Stubby Kaye’s rousing “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat”.
During the 1950s, Sinatra was stretching his acting chops and his best work, Maggio in From Here to Eternity, is missing from this box set. Instead, we get the long-forgotten A Hole in the Head that asks us to accept Sinatra and Edward G. Robinson as brothers.
Based on the 1957 play of the same name, it does posit the notion of an Amusement Park in Florida with the wonderful Keenan Wynn as the Disney stand-in. The film, directed by Frank Capra, is amusing and has a nice cast, including a pre-Addams Carolyn Jones. It also gives us the Sinatra standard “High Hopes”.
By 1962 Sinatra was firmly gripped in the Rat Pack lifestyle and made numerous films with his buddies as embodied in Ocean’s 11. With Dean Martin and Peter Lawford, Sinatra also made the forgettable Sergeant’s 3, a lame remake of Gunga Din. The movie languished forgotten until it finally emerged on DVD just last year and is now slipped into this set.
Far more engaging is the same year’s Manchurian Candidate. The gripping drama is far superior to the recent remake and is a terrific Cold War tale with a strong cast including Angela Lansbury. For a time controversial, it is now one of the strongest Sinatra dramatic performances and a movie that holds up well despite the years and changing global politics.
Other sets of note to ComicMix fans include Gary Cooper, Jody Foster, Nicolas Cage, Robert Downey, Jr., and Sean Connery.
The biggest hurdle James Cameron had to face in getting AVATAR to screen was waiting for technology to catch up with his imagination, but even harder was the job actors like Zoe Salanda had to face acting in an almost virtual set. We talk to them today as AVATAR continues to build big box office. Meanwhile, Neal Adams turns in an amazing cover and
Fox takes a shot at CHUCK.
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!
Don’t forget that you can now enjoy THE POINT 24 hours a Day – 7 Days a week!. Updates on all parts of pop culture, special programming by some of your favorite personalities and the biggest variety of contemporary music on the net – plus there is a great round of new programs on the air including classic radio each night at 12mid (Eastern) on RETRO RADIO and COMICMIX’s Mark Wheatley hitting the FREQUENCY every Saturday ay 9pm.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN LIVE FOR FREE or go to GetThePointRadio for more including a connection for mobile phones including iPhone & Blackberrys
The Best American Comics 2009
Edited by Charles Burns; Series Editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, October 2009, $22.00
Long ago, the wise minds at the “[[[Best American]]]” series of annuals at Houghton Mifflin – now covering everything from sportswriting to mystery stories – realized that they didn’t need to wait for the calendar year to turn, if that was bad timing for their deadlines. They could simply declare some other standard 365-day period to be their “year” and stick with it. And so this book has 2009 in its title – since that’s the year it was published, and consumers are noticeably reticent to pick up a book that appears to be outdated – but collects Charles Burns’s choices for the best comics of the year that ran from September 1, 2007 through August 31, 2008. (And why shouldn’t that year be just as legitimate as the one that begins on January 1st, or September 19th, or February 14th?)
This is the fourth entry in the [[[Best American Comics]]] series; 2008 was edited by Lynda Barry, 2007 by Chris Ware, and 2006 by Harvey Pekar. All of those guest editors come from what’s vaguely the same end of the comics world – art comics rather than commercial comics, personal stories rather than assembly-line works-for-hire – but they’re each idiosyncratic individuals, with their own tastes and agendas. So the Best American Comics books have certain family resemblances, but each book is quite distinct.
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