Pop Culture Safari!

Pop Culture Roundup July 24, 2007

Tomorrow's comics today: See the big list of what's in shops tomorrow.

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Here's a fresh pic from the upcoming Iron Man movie starring Robert Downey Jr.

Samuel L. Jackson and Hilary Swank reportedly make cameo appearances in the film.

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Warner Bros. plans a big-screen film based on DC Comics' weird Western character, Jonah Hex.

Hex, known for having the right side of his face disfigured and wearing a Confederate army uniform, was a rough-and-tumble gunslinger and part-time bounty hunter whose adventures always ended in blood.

...The filmmakers are not making a straight-ahead Western but plan to develop the character with some of the supernatural overtones in the hopes of creating a franchise.

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Also in the works is a film adaptation of DC's Y: The Last Man series.

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Comic Mix looks at how The Shadow served as a key inspiration for Batman.

DVD new releases July 24, 2007

Stargate SG-1 - Season 10

Weeds - Season Two

The Monster Squad (Two-Disc 20th Anniversary Edition)

The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection

The Secrets of Isis - The Complete Series

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Vol. 3

Tales from the Crypt: The Complete Sixth Season

Classic Musicals from the Dream Factory, Vol. 2 (The Pirate / Words and Music / That's Dancing / The Belle of New York & Royal Wedding / That Midnight Kiss & The Toast of New Orleans)

Benson - The Complete First Season

Les Enfants Terribles: Criterion Collection

The Ultimate Underdog Collection Volume 1

The Ultimate Underdog Collection Volume 2

The Ultimate Underdog Collection Volume 3

The Real McCoys: Complete Season 1

A Bit of Fry and Laurie - The Complete Collection... Every Bit!

Land of the Giants - The Full Series (The Giant Collection)

Star Trek Fan Collective - Captain's Log

Elvis Presley MGM Movie Legends Collection (Clambake / Frankie and Johnny / Follow That Dream / Kid Galahad)

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man / House of Frankenstein

Son of Frankenstein / The Ghost of Frankenstein

Dracula's Daughter/Son of Dracula

Werewolf of London / She-Wolf of London

The Mummy's Hand/The Mummy's Tomb

Frank Sinatra MGM Movie Legends Collection (The Manchurian Candidate / Guys and Dolls / The Pride and the Passion / A Hole in the Head / Kings Go Forth)

More upcoming DVDs

CD new releases July 24, 2007

CD new releases July 24, 2007

Planet Earth ~ Prince

Live In Boston ~ The Doors

Is Is ~ Yeah Yeah Yeah's

Up Front and Down Low ~ Teddy Thompson

U.F.O's At The Zoo - The Legendary Concert In Oklahoma City (MVI Album) ~ Flaming Lips

Live From Austin Texas by David Byrne

This Guitar Kills by Jimmy Page

I Feel a Song Going Off by Marty Feldman

More upcoming CDs

Vintage DC Comics house ad

Today's video: Dark Shadows Groovy Horror Head ad

Pop Artifact! Superman 8mm movies and projector

Pop Culture Roundup July 23, 2007

The New York Times takes an early look at the straight-to-DVD animated version of Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier comic.

“The New Frontier” would be one of the first three adult-oriented DC projects to be given the straight-to-DVD treatment and will sit alongside similar full-length adventures of Superman and Batman; DVD collections of the animated television series “Superfriends,” “Justice League” and “Batman Beyond,” among others, have been popular with fans. “I was kind of floored by the call and the fact that this was being done,” said Darwyn Cooke, 45, the writer and artist behind the comic. The news came from Gregory Noveck, the senior vice president of creative affairs at DC Comics, a unit of Time Warner. The company wanted to produce a series of direct-to-DVD animated films that would, unlike its previous efforts, more closely follow the source material.

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"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," will be even bigger and more visually stunning than its predecessor, reports Sci Fi Wire.

"Narnia had been created approximately 900 years before the last film took place," director Andrew Adamson said. "This is now another 1,300 years later. Narnia has been oppressed by Telmarines for a large period of that time. So it's a dirtier, grittier, darker place than the last world was. When the kids come back in, they bring a lot of nostalgia with them, and they think they are going back to the place they knew. And instead, they've come back to a very changed world."

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From Booksteve: A 1972 comic con poster by the great Sergio Aragones.

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Toonzone reviews legit DVD sets collecting the 1960s "Marvel Superheroes" animated series. Trouble is, they haven't been released in the U.S. yet. If your DVD player can handle Region 2 disks, you can order from Amazon UK using the links here.

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Some viewers weren't thrilled by the Beatles' worldwide TV broadcast of "All You Need is Love" 40 years ago--and the band was never told.

Newly released documents revealed some viewers considered the Liverpool band unworthy of representing Britain in the show, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported Sunday.

..."Have we nothing better to offer? Surely this isn't the image of what we are like. What a dreadful impression they must have given the rest of the world," one comment read, the newspaper reported.

Another viewer, impressed by contributions from elsewhere, said "after all the culture ... shown by the other countries, the Beatles were the absolute dregs," the newspaper claimed.

"We did not do ourselves justice," another viewer commented.