Read on for the show notes.

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I know on the boards theres somes New Pornographers fans, so I’ll take the risk that anyone just reading the news site here likes them too. Here’s the performance of “My Rights Versus Yours” from Letterman last night.
The new album Challengers was just released to stores and download services today.
I’ve still yet to soak in the new record, but if its like the last 3, I’ll be playing it a lot.

A couple years back, Screenwriter David Goyer was getting ready to go on a movie based on the DC hero The Flash, and he made no mystery that he wasn’t Ryan Reynolds in the role. Then the movie died. Joss Whedon’s Wonder Woman isn’t happening either. Batman rolls on into the Dark Knight, and Superman is still tenatively scheduled to return again as Man Of Steel in 2009.
IESB reports that Warner Bros execs are gassed about a Justice League script they got and want to put it into production as early as next spring fro a 2009 release…

Our sources have confirmed earlier reports that the Justice League of America film will consist of at least Superman (Clark Kent), Batman (Bruce Wayne), Wonder Woman (Princess Diana), The Flash (Barry Allen), Aquaman and the Green Lantern (John Stewart) and will follow the OMAC storyline and also feature Maxwell Lord.
Within a few weeks, George Miller should be confirmed as the director and casting should commence immediately. The priority for the studio will have to be to figure out what they are doing with Superman and Batman.

I bolded that last part because its important. I don’t know if Batman or Superman as a franchise can survive with a JLA movie. I don’t know if Nolan & Goyer’s Batman would even work in this movie. And recasting Batman would be as big a mistake as keeping him and changing his character.
Fueling speculation is Ryan Reynolds dodging Flash questions. Why would he talk at all unless he was either already signed or seriously being considered for the role?

Personally I’d leave Batman and Superman out of it. If they’re so gung ho to get a League movie going, lets get Giffen and DeMatteis on it and make a Justice League Detroit or Justice League International movie.

Viacom has mentioned in this press release that Paramount and Dreamworks are now exclusively backing HD DVD over the competing Blu-Ray format. In recent months as many studios who had been backing HD DVD began releasing movies in both formats it’s a bit unusual to see studios taking the side that’s having less economic success.

Studios affected by this deal are Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Animation SKG, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films. The first features to be released exclusively to HD DVD will be Shrek the 3rd, Blades of Glory and Transformers.

No doubt this will mean great things for HD DVD as this format war really comes down to who gets the better exclusive titles. Naturally some biased people are getting their panties in a bunch over the whole debacle.

Coupling this with the resent increase in the number of weekly HD DVD titles released it certainly looks like the early lead Blu-Ray had in this format war may not have been the quick end it once seemed to be.

Well Quebec actually wants more games in French, which I’m all in support of, but the method they’re using to make such things happen is something which I’m not too wild about.

Le soleil reports that the French language police has decided that all video games sold in Quebec must now have a French translation.

This is a huge slap in the face to all Quebec gamers who will have their video game selection cut down considerably. As little as 36% of games released in Quebec are currently bilingual or French. While it’s already the case that new games in Canada come with bilingual packaging and instruction manuals to have the actual game include a full French translation is a much more involved change requiring a considerable amount of work on the development side to implement.

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Captain Planet’s got nothing on Sony.

In a turn of planetary charity, Sony has announced that they are setting up a program that would allow people to turn in their old broken or unwanted Playstation consoles in for recycling. The Sony “Take Back Recycling Program” will launch September 15th, and will accept any of it’s own consoles for free, and any other consumer electronics for a fee. Yes, if you don’t have a Sony product, you must pay to help conserve resources with your puny Xbox’s or Gamecubes. Imagine that.

The company has partnered with 75 Waste Management (WM) Recycle America eCycling centers across the country, and you can mail your console in if you don’t live near to one. The number of centers to accept the consoles will hope to increase within a year, Sony predicts.

“We believe it is Sony’s responsibility to provide customers with end-of-life solutions for all the products we manufacture,” said Stan Glasgow, president and chief operating officer of Sony Electronics.

What kind of incentive do you get for being so environment-conscious? Nothing. You get the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping to save the planet. Somehow, I can’t see this exactly being a great way of motivating people, when people have enough trouble keeping from throwing their beer and soda cans out their car windows. Though I must admit, it would be pretty humorous to see if people littered the sides of highways with broken and useless Sony consoles in the same fashion.

Taking a page from the SDCC exclusive release of the Goro figure a few weeks ago, the guys over at Jazwares Inc. have decided to continue the line of bigtime bosses from the Mortal Kombat series by releasing a Kintaro figure as well, under the Shaolin Monks line of toys.

Thus far, not much info has been released in tandem with the announcement of the figure, and thusly it’s undetermined whether or not the figure will be an exclusive like it’s Goro predecessor, or if it will be a regular release with the other toys of the line. A release date has not been dropped either, so pretty much the only thing we have to go on is the image of the figure. However, it does look very pretty this far along, and MK fans can only hope that more characters from the Shoalin Monks will be released in the near future.

Found on The Movie Blog, here is a handful of phots from the set of Dark Knight. Don’t think theres anything super spoilery in this set, but skip past these thumbnails if you don’t want to see a couple close-ups of The Joker.
I’m kind of shocked to see the more traditonal garb for the Joker, but that face still looks pretty creepy. The Bat suit is decided more focused on utlity and movement than it was before. I believe this thing would work in a fight and still provide enough armor to be useful.