Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Season 1 (Part 1)
DVD
Starring: Diedrich Bader, John DiMaggio, Will Friedle, James Arnold Taylor
Warner Home Video
Released date: August 17, 2010

Batman: The Brave and the Bold is one of my favorite animated TV shows of the past few years, so for me, it’s really exciting that Warner Home Video and DC Comics have released the first part to the first season on DVD on a two-disc set. Season One of Batman: The Brave and The Bold took a refreshing look at The Caped Crusader for kids and fans alike by teaming him up with a cast array of DC Comics characters including The Red Tornado, Green Arrow, The Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes), Robin, Aquaman, and many others.

The creators of the show took the recent dark tone of the of the 1990s and 2000s and turned it on its head by brightening the character up through animation style, score, and the brilliant voice acting on the series from veterans Diedrich Bader as Batman, John DiMaggio as Aquaman, and James Arnold Taylor as Green Arrow. The show is based in the silver age of comics, and centers around the concept introduced in The Brave and the Bold comic series from DC Comics that featured team-ups from B, C, and D list heroes teaming with A list heroes, so in this show, you see a lot of characters that you wouldn’t imagine would ever get the animated series treatment including The Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick […]

If you follow movie news, you’re aware that last month we found out that Guillermo del Toro would be directing his dream project next, a massive big-budget adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft‘s At the Mountains of Madness with James Cameron helping out as a producer. This was some of the more exciting news we’ve heard in recent memory, but now begins the not-so-exciting aspect to the project: the casting rumors.

When del Toro was attached to direct The Hobbit, the constants in related news were either delays due to MGM’s ongoing struggles (which ultimately led to del Toro stepping away from the movies), and of course the never-ending rumors of who might play Bilbo Baggins. Now the casting frenzy has begun with At the Mountains of Madness, and we have our first two potential lead-role names.

The good news here is that these actors are not randomly generated rumors, but more the leading names on the studio and director’s wish list. The bad news is that the studio and director seem to have a difference in opinion. [...]

Anyone remember the hilarious 70-minute video review of Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace put out in seven parts by Red Letter Media back in December?

In the video review, a Mr. Plinkett uses movies clips and infographics to demonstrate his points, and now he’s tackled last year’s Star Trek reboot. In the Star Trek review, Plinkett goes beyond discussing the most recent film by also comparing it to the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the Star Trek: The Next Generation films, the Star Wars prequels, as well as other films based on 1960s televisions shows, like Lost In Space.

You can watch Part 1 and Part 2 of the review here below (it’s a Flash video player, so if you have trouble viewing the video, follow the links to the official site). [...]

One of the biggest names in science fiction entertainment today is without doubt Ronald D. Moore.

Along with David Eick, Moore created one of the greatest TV shows of all time in the brilliant reinvention of Battlestar Galactica. Aside from that series radiating from his resume, Moore got his start in the realms of Star Trek, writing and producing on The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and working on the screenplays for movies Generations and First Contact. But now Moore is ready to jump into a new type of show: fantasy.

It’s being reported that Moore has a new project lining up at NBC Universal that’s a fantasy drama being compared to an adult Harry Potter. Instead of all of the elements of a science fiction, this time around we’ll be seeing a lot of magic in the show, which is through Sony TV.

It’s unclear why, but the pilot and series brought about $2 million in penalties, making it a major commitment which will also likely tote a major budget if and when it comes around. [...]

Tumor
Hardcover
Joshua Hale Fialkov & Noel Tuazon
Archaia Comics
Cover Price: $14.99
Release Date: June 22, 2010

One part Memento, one part Maltese Falcon, Tumor from Archaia Comics takes readers on a noir trip through the mind of former private investigator Frank Armstrong. Frank is a man who has lived a troubled life riddled with crime, mystery, and murder, but in the events of Tumor, he gets an unexpected surprise when he is diagnosed with brain cancer. In his very last case, Frank is met with the child of a mobster and memories of his dead wife that come back to haunt him at the most inopportune moments.

Joshua Hale Fialkov does an amazing job at telling an old fashioned detective story, while giving the reader twists and turns down the path towards solving the real mystery of dissecting the fragmented mind of Frank Armstrong. The book, coming in at approximately 200 pages of story, keeps us intrigued through the impeccable character work of the supporting cast to the point that we truly care about each one of them and how their story unfolds. Every single character is flawed, but charming, and in an era of comics when characters are created seemingly to just be flawed and have few redeeming qualities, Fialkov’s vision is a deep breath of fresh air [...]

Microsoft has announced that they’re getting ready to raise the prices of their Xbox Live Gold subscriptions in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Mexico. The price increase will take hold on November 1, 2010.

The company has decided to enlarge their price tag due to the fact that so much has been added to LIVE since its launch, and they feel their new prices are still fair for all users. Not all prices will be affected for the above-mentioned countries, such as the full year subscription for UK users, which will remain as is.

The specific price changes are as follows: for the U.S., one month will now cost you $9.99 instead of the previous $7.99; three months will run you $24.99 instead of the previous $19.99; twelve months will jump to $59.99 instead of $49.99. For the UK, the only price change is to your one month fee, which will now cost £5.99 instead of £4.99. In Canada, you too will only see a change to the one month price, growing from $8.99 to $9.99. Lastly, for Mexico, your only increase is on the twelve month subscription, which will jump from $499 pesos to $599 pesos. [...]

Warner Bros. TV is in the early stages of developing a television series based on the popular Neil Gaiman comic book series Sandman.

WB is currently in the process of acquiring the television rights to Sandman from sister company DC Entertainment, which owns Vertigo, the imprint that published the comic book series from 1989 until 1996.

The company is also in talks with several writer-producers to adapt the award-winning series for television, apparently with Eric Kripke, creator of the CW television series Supernatural, at the top of their list of choices.

Sandman adaptations have been stuck in development hell over the past two decades with a movie version of the series planned in the early 1990s by frequent Gaiman collaborate Roger Avary, but that fell through. There had even been talks earlier this year of bringing the series to HBO, but that didn’t work out either. Back in March, Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn, who adapted Gaiman’s Stardust for the big screen, expressed interest in doing a Sandman cable TV series and even spoke with Gaiman about his ideas, but nothing ever came of it. [Read ‘Kick-Ass’ Director Wants To Do A ‘Sandman’ Cable TV Series] [...]

Good news Tron fans, your friends at Disney are gearing up for the movie Tron: Legacy in a big way with their ElecTRONica celebration this Fall. It is going to be a night club and dance party that will run on weekends starting October 8, 2010 at Disney’s California Adventure Park at Disneyland in California, which is the only Disney park that will be featuring this spectacular celebration of sounds, lights, and music.

The special event, which is open to members of the entire family, will even have an entire recreation of “Flynn’s Arcade” that will have working game machines and an outdoor dance club where you can dance on the grid. Also, each night, there will be face painting and live entertainment with music, lasers, and glow accessories. There will also be a TRON: Evolution video game area.

Disney has released some concept art of ElecTRONica, which you can view here below, along with further details about the upcoming event [...]

Back in June we found out that Telltale Games, the company behind popular episodic video games like Tales of Monkey Island and Sam & Max, would be making a couple of new series of games based on the popular worlds of Back to the Future and Jurassic Park (Read: GREAT SCOTT, There’s An Episodic ‘Back To The Future’ Game On The Way!).

The games won’t be sequels but more of a new style of telling the stories we know and love with some new stuff mixed in as well. The first game on the way will be from BTTF this winter, and it will come in conjunction with the year-long celebration of the 25th anniversary of Back to the Future, which we already know will also include a special new trilogy DVD and Blu-ray set.

New information revealed includes that the likenesses of Marty McFly and Doc Brown will be used in the game, and even that Christopher Lloyd will be returning to voice Doc for the entire game series. [...]

We’ve known for a while that star late night talk show host Conan O’Brien would be bringing his talents to TBS after an epic fallout with NBC left him parting ways with the network and on vacation until this fall.

While we all just want our precious Conan back on the air, one big question has been what exactly Conan’s show would be called when it does eventually debut, and this is a question that we now have an answer to. It will also be interesting to see how similar or different the show will be from his NBC shows knowing that they still own a lot of the great things he created, but for now, we have ourselves the title at least.

Conan revealed that they had unveiled what his new show would be called on his Twitter account, which lead to the Team Coco website and a video with the big reveal. You can click on over to the other side now to check out the video featuring O’brien himself now! [...]

At Dragon*Con, the 4-day geek convention held in Atlanta, GA, every Labor Day weekend, people in costumes greatly out number those in plain clothes, panelists often attend the fan parties and the droids serve you alcohol.

OK, actually only one droid: the appropriately named BAR2D2.

The droid has a 15-beer capacity that’s proudly displayed around a neon-lit carousel and features a “beer” elevator that pushes the bottles up to the top for consumption. Just above that is the hard liquor mixing stack — a 6-bottle shot station that can serve about 100 drinks without stopping to refill the booze. Using the LazyDrinker software, BAR2 can mix about 5,000 drink combinations on demand with access to a laptop computer (and soon an iPhone), according to creator Jamie Price.

And of course, there’s a remote controlled Ice, Garnish & Juice drawer to make your alcoholic beverages served exactly like they are from boring humans behind a counter.

Check out the pictures and video embedded below to get a closer look [...]

Fans of the 1987 science fiction classic RoboCop and its sequels will be excited to see that the entire RoboCop Trilogy will be released on Blu-ray this Fall.

It all started in 1987 with Paul Verhoeven‘s (Total Recall, Starship Troopers) classic tale of a good cop named Murphy who is gunned down by a gang of ruthless killers, and then transformed into a super part man/part robot cop who sets out to clean up the streets of Detroit by any means necessary.

He does his job effectively at first, but as he struggles with remnants of his past memories flashing before him and new technologies controlled by those greedy for power threatening his very existence, RoboCop’s mission will not be accomplished easily.

Though the first is easily the most popular of the movies, two sequels did follow. RoboCop 2 was directed by Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back, Never Say Never Again) and released in 1990. It tells the story of a corrupt business woman who also tries to destroy RoboCop in hopes of her own technological advancements taking his place [...]