Pop Culture Safari!

Season's greetings from Popular Electronics!

German Spider-Man 2 trailer features new footage!

Video teaser for Community season 5!

Season's greetings from the Beatles!

Pop culture roundup: Monty Python! Tiki Transformer! Saul Bass/James Bond! Godzilla! Wrecking Crew!

Here's a pic of the reunited members of Monty Python, set to do some live performances in the New Year.

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Check out this Tiki Transformer created for a Tokyo toy show.

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What if Saul Bass had designed posters for James Bond films?

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My, how you've grown! Check out this chart looking at how Godzilla has increased in stature over the years.

And, just for good measure (ha!), here's a trailer for the newest Godzilla flick:

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"The Wrecking Crew" is an acclaimed documentary about the Los Angeles studio musicians who played on a zillion rock'n'roll and pop hits during the 1960s. The Beach Boys, Monkees, Dean Martin, Byrds, Sinatra, Phil Spector and many more featured their work. Sounds like a great film, right? Trouble is, unless you live someplace that shows documentaries in a theater, you probably haven't seen it. And it's not on DVD. The trouble is licensing fees. When you do a movie and want to include music by so many big artists, you end up paying a lot of money. And that's the trouble with releasing this flick on disk.

To remedy the problem, and raise the necessary dough, the filmmakers have turned to -- you guessed it -- Kickstarter. Go here to donate to this extremely worthy cause.

Fab Friday: The Beatles' vital stats!

All the Beatles U.S. albums coming Jan. 21 - box set and individual CDs! Order here!

In the wake of reports about officially unreleased 1963 tracks coming to iTunes next week, here's more big news for Beatles fans: All the band's U.S.-version albums are coming to CD.

Some background:

Before the Beatles' catalog was placed on compact disk, many of the band's music in the United States was available in different configurations on sometimes differently named albums.

For example, those of us who grew up in the 1960s and 70s remember LPs such as Meet the Beatles, Something New and Yesterday and Today, which were never released in Britain.

Capitol Records did this, mainly, to put out more Beatles product early in the band's career and also to do some catching up with the band's output in Britain, where they hit the charts a full year ahead of the U.S.

The Capitol albums were more numerous, featured fewer tracks, and sometimes altered mixes and edits and extra studio processing, such as heavy echo.

The American soundtracks for "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!," both issued on the United Artists label, were also different, featuring George Martin's instrumental tracks from both films.

Whereas the Beatles only rarely put songs released as singles on their LPs, Capitol had no qualms about double-dipping, putting singles out as 7-inch singles and including them on LPs.

Once the Beatles' output slowed down a bit with Sgt. Pepper, the albums in the U.S. and U.K. featured the same names and track lineups.

Many fans prefer the English versions. Those are the LPs the Beatles themselves approved for release. But some of us also are nostalgic about the Capitol LPs, even those the label screwed up with too much echo and haphazard track selection and sequencing. Not to mention, the tossed off cover art.

Capitol has released most of the American albums on a pair of CD box sets, but now comes news of a new, bigger, better collection. Out January 21, The Beatles U.S. Albums features all 13 of the band's pre-Pepper U.S. releases.

The albums also will be available individually on CD (click the individual album links below), which comes as good news to folks who want to cherry pick their favorites and/or those that are "most different" from their British cousins. No word on vinyl, yet.

Some additional info on the box:

These new releases seek to replicate the unique listening experience heard by Americans at the time by preserving the sequences, timings, and artwork found on the albums. Capitol’s engineers in the 1960s took great care to produce what they believed to be the best possible sound for the playback equipment in use at that time. Due to the limitations of the record players of the day, engineers often compressed the sound by raising the volume of the softer passages and lowering the volume for the louder parts of the songs. They also reduced the bass frequencies since too much bass could cause the record to skip. In some cases, reverb was added to the tracks to make them sound more “American.”

The CDs are packaged in miniature vinyl sleeves that faithfully recreate the original U.S. LP releases down to the finest detail, including the inner sleeves. 11 original U.S. albums presented in both mono and stereo. Hey Jude and The Beatles’ Story are in stereo only. A Hard Day’s Night [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack], The Beatles’ Story, Yesterday And Today, Hey Jude and the U.S. version of Revolver are presented on CD for the first time.

Yesterday And Today features the original album cover of The Beatles posing with raw meat and baby dolls. The package also comes with a collectible sticker of the subsequent Yesterday And Today cover art. Also included is a 64-page booklet which includes a new essay examining the U.S. albums and their historical significance, written by American author and television executive Bill Flanagan. The box set’s dimensions are: 6 inches wide x 6 1/8 inches tall x 3 ¼ inches thick.

Here's the lineup.

Meet The Beatles (The U.S. Album)
The Beatles' Second Album (The U.S. Album)
A Hard Day's Night [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack] (The U.S. Album)
Something New (The U.S. Album)
The Beatles’ Story (1964) - NOT LISTED YET on Amazon
Beatles '65 (The U.S. Album)
The Early Beatles (The U.S. Album)
Beatles VI (The U.S. Album)
Help! [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack] (The U.S. Album)
Rubber Soul (The U.S. Album)
Yesterday And Today (The U.S. Album)
Revolver (The U.S. Album)
Hey Jude (The U.S. Album)

Somebody's bright idea: Lambretta chair

Details.

Season's greetings from Boris Karloff and the Grinch!

Trailer for live-action "Kiki's Delivery Service" film

In Japan, Miyazaki's classic animated film gets a live-action treatment.

Report: "Official bootleg" of Beatles' 1963 recordings set for digital-only release next week

A major scoop from the Beatles Examiner: the Beatles will release an official compilation of 1963 studio, live and radio rarities next week on iTunes.

The Beatles: Bootleg Recordings 1963 will include 59 tracks, including studio outtakes, demos and otherwise unreleased recordings made for the band's BBC Radio appearances. It's set for release Dec. 17.

Tracks are said to include:

1. “There's A Place” - Takes 5, 6. 2:19
2. “There's A Place” - Take 8. 1:58
3. “There's A Place” - Take 9. 2:04
4. “Do You Want To Known A Secret” - Track 2, Take 7. 2:17
5. “A Taste Of Honey” - Track 2, Take 6. 2:12
6. “I Saw Her Standing There” - Take 2. 3:07
7. “Misery” - Take 1. 1:54
8. “Misery” - Take 7. 1:56
9. “From Me To You” - Take 1 & 2. 3:24
10. “From Me To You” - Take 5. 2:17
11. “Thank You Girl” - Take 1. 2:09
12. “Thank You Girl” - Take 5. 2:04
13. “One After 909” - Take 1 & 2. 4:29
14. “Hold Me Tight” - Take 21. 2:42
15. “Money (That's What I Want)” - RM 7 Undubbed 2:48
16. “Some Other Guy” - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 26th January, 1963. 2:02.
17. “Love Me Do” - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 26th January, 1963. 2:31
18. “Too Much Monkey Business” - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 16th March, 1963 1:50
19. “I Saw Her Standing There” - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 16th March, 1963. 2:38.
20. “Do You Want To Know A Secret” - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 25th May, 1963 1:50
21. “From Me To You” - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 26th May, 1963. 1:54
22. “I Got To Find My Baby” - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 26th January, 1963 1:59.
23. “Roll Over Beethoven” - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 29th June, 1963 2:29
24. “A Taste Of Honey” - Live At BBC For "Easy Beat" / 23rd June, 1963 2:01
25. “Love Me Do” - Live At BBC For "Easy Beat" / 20th October, 1963 2:29
26. “Please Please Me” - Live At BBC For "Easy Beat" / 20th October, 1963 2:08
27. “She Loves You” - Live At BBC For "Easy Beat" / 20th October, 1963 2:29
28. “I Want To Hold Your Hand” - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 21st December, 1963 2:19
29. “Till There Was You” - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 21st December, 1963 2:16
30. “Roll Over Beethoveen” - Live At BBC For "Saturday Club" / 21st December, 1963 2:16
31. “You Really Got A Hold On Me” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 4th June, 1963 2:54
32. “The Hippy Hippy Shake” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 4th June, 1963 1:43
33. “Till There Was You” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" /11th June, 1963 2:14
34. “A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 18th June, 1963 2:06
35. “A Taste Of Honey” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 18th June, 1963 1:56
36. “Money (That's What I Want)” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 18th June, 1963 2:41
37. “Anna” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 25th June, 1963 3:02
38. “Love Me Do” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 10th September, 1963 2:29
39. “She Loves You” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 24th September, 1963 2:16
40. “I'll Get You” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 10th September, 1963 2:05
41. “A Taste Of Honey” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 10th September, 1963 2:00
42. “Boys” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 17th September, 1963 2:12
43. “Chains” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 17th September, 1963 2:22
44. “You Really Got A Hold On Me” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 17th September, 1963
2:57
45. “I Saw Her Standing There” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 24th September, 1963 2:41
46. “She Loves You” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 10th September, 1963 2:15
47. “Twist And Shout” - Live At BBC For "Pop Go The Beatles" / 24th September, 1963 2:36
48. “Do You Want To Know A Secret” - Live At BBC For "Here We Go" / 12th March, 1963 1:55
49. “Please Please Me” - Live At BBC For "Here We Go" / 12th March, 1963 1:57
50. “Long Tall Sally” - Live At BBC For "Side By Side" / 13th May, 1963 1:49
51. “Chains” - Live At BBC For "Side By Side" / 13th May, 1963 2:23
52. “Boys” - Live At BBC For "Side By Side" / 13th May, 1963 1:53
53. “A Taste Of Honey” - Live At BBC For "Side By Side" / 13th May, 1963 2:04
54. “Roll Over Beethoven” - Live At BBC For "From Us To You" / 26th December, 1963 2:17
55. “All My Loving” - Live At BBC For "From Us To You" / 26th December, 1963 2:06
56. “She Loves You” - Live At BBC For "From Us To You" / 26th December, 1963 2:21
57. “Till There Was You” - Live At BBC For "From Us To You" / 26th December, 1963 2:12
58. “Bad To Me” - Demo 1:29
59. “I'm In Love” - Demo 1:32