Shamelessly checking Jenna Fischer‘s Myspace blog, I noticed this tidbit among the din of losing the Golden Globe…

This week we are shooting with hot shot director Joss Whedon! This has been especially exciting for me because I already knew Joss. (He has known my husband for a long time.) Joss has quickly become one of our favorite directors. The crew loves him. He’s a huge fan of the show and therefore gets really into every detail of the show. He watches us even when we are in the background of a scene and compliments our smallest of choices. It’s been a total dream. I’m currently the background of a scene and I can see him hunched over the monitors watching a scene and giggling like a little girl. I’m going to miss him.

Geek Icon Joss Whedon takes on the Office? How terrible cool for him! Joss, as you may or may not know, got his start writing TV on Roseanne.

Of course, there’s always talk of special directors working on TV shows and you’d be really pressed to tell the difference. I remember at the height of Quentin Tarantino’s pop stardom between Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown he directed an “ER” that was so amazingly exactly like every other ER that you’d never know or care someone more famous than normal was directing. That’s TV for you. If he does a good job, it shouldn’t be different from the rest of the show.

Stephen Colbert is scheduled to make an appearance at New York’s Comic Con, which runs this February 23-25th. He’s only going to be there on Friday the 23rd, at 3:30 PM, but come 3:31, he’s GONE. Or so I assume. The press release didn’t say any specifics about a departure time. Don’t get too worked up yet though – he won’t be doing any panels or any other scheduled public speaking. Apparently he’s mostly just available to sign stuff, like busoms. On the side, he’ll be helping to promote the upcoming 5-issue comic from Oni Press, Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen, which should be out in stores sometime in March. Please note – Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen is not actually written or drawn by Stephen Colbert. Consider yourself informed.

Marvel has recently put out a number of straight-to-DVD animated features including the Ultimate Avengers and the Ultimate Avengers 2. The latest in this series is The Invincible Iron Man. It only makes sense for Marvel to choose Iron Man to get his own animated feature with a full length live action feature film currently in the works. While the Ultimate Avengers films were based on Marvel’s Ultimate universe canon, the Iron Man story is taken from traditional Marvel continuity updated so that it makes sense for audiences of today.

Read the rest of the review after the jump. No spoilers are in the review. Beware the comments, though.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

After watching the awesomely amazing Batman Begins I was completely under the impression that Katie Holmes‘s character Rachel Dawes would not be returning in the next movie. Not for contractual reasons or anything like, that but rather simply because they seemed to insinuate that her relationship with Bruce as we had known it was not possible anymore, and that she was moving on with her life without him. For more on this see the last 5 minutes of Batman Begins.

Well as various sources are reporting Katie Holmes was offered 2 million dollars to reprise the role and turned it down, presumably to star in an intellectually devoid comedy starring Queen Latifa, and on top of that the studio is still looking to cast someone else as the character as Rachel Dawes.

It’s nearly impossible to tell where fact starts and speculation begins in all this. The fact that Katie was offered 2 million to star in the Batman Begins sequel Dark Knight, and turned the role down due to “scheduling conflicts” seems all we can be sure of. The question of whether her doing this retarded Queen Latifa movie is the source of her conflict could be mainly speculation as could the talk of there still being a desire to cast someone else as Rachel Dawes instead of simply working around the charcter not being in the film, as there is no reason for a sequel not to be able to work if she weren’t returning.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

BBC news brings us news of a new animated series called “The Infinite Quest” starring none other than The Doctor himself, Doctor Who. Currently planned to be a 13 episode series it will feature the Doctor and his new sidekick traveling through many worlds to find an ancient spaceship.

Anthony Stewart Head, best known as Giles the Watcher in Buffy: The Vampire Slaver, will voice the vilain of the series, Balthazar. No confirmation of whether David Tennant and other stars of the live action series will be featured as the voices of their respective characters has been made at this time.

The next gen is fully underway now and the one thing all 3 major players have in common is that they want you do download games. With content being added on a weekly basis, there’s a lot to cover…

Playstation Network
We’re still waiting for Tekken 5 to hit the US, even if it’s already available in Hong Kong and plenty of folks have set up dummy accounts to get it. fl0w is due in february, and looks like it may be the breakout hit Sony’s been waiting for. In the meantime you can always play Gran Turismo HD, though Major Nelson thinks it looks suspiciously like PGR3. The PS Network has a huge potential with the ability to download games to play on a PSP, but the very low numbers of available games keep even ecstatic supporters from being able to invest too heavily.
Full List of PS3 Network games

Wii Virtual Console
With just over 2 months in the market, they’ve got the strongest lineup, if not the most original. Last week saw the release of Legend Of Zelda III: A Link To The Past, and this coming monday we’ve got Mario Kart 64 and the Sega Genesis classic Comix Zone. Hopefully you didn’t blow your Wii Points on Urban Champion. Not suprisingly, Japan is getting quite a few more games than we are for now. This will hopefully even out as the year goes on.
List of Virtual Console titles

Xbox Live Arcade
While not in the game market as long as the competition, Microsoft has a huge lead on classic and original titles available for download. Must buys include Geometry Wars and Marble Blast Ultra, with enhanced arcade titles like Contra, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and Street Fighter II. The classic titles aren’t nearly as varied as those found on Wii’s Virtual Console, but online leaderboards and multiplayer keep you from getting bored. The ability to demo any game is also helpful since Microsoft’s point system is designed specifically to trick you into thinking you are spending less money than you are. This past week saw the release of Heavy Weapon, which I played for 40 minutes on the demo before having to take a break. It appears the only benefit to buying the game is to get the achievement points and only play. Forthcoming games include Alien Hominid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and a game based on MEGAFORCE. I’m not kidding. Megaforce.
List Of Xbox Live Arcade titles

While I fully realise that none of our readers seem to care about Day Break I still feel the need to report on this amazing show in the hopes that someone will actually watch it.

Plans to release the episodes online have been finalised and this coming Monday, January 29th 2007, all 4 remaining episodes of the show will be available for download according to this episode guide on ABC.com.

As a follow up to my post from earlier this month my brother has some bad news. This week instead of Day Break NTV played 24. The Rogers Digital Cable listing, up to and including the time when the show played, showed that Day Break would play. Next week Day Break is shown as playing again with the description of the same episode that was meant to play yesterday.

So best case we get the new episodes one week later, starting February 8th, and worst case we won’t be getting them at all. This isn’t a big deal considering the episodes will be available online at ABC.com but is still relevant as the quality and convenience of a TV broadcast makes it worth keeping an eye out for.

Thanks again to Togast for this news.

Update!

Canadian viewers, along with all other non US viewers, will likely not be able to view new episodes of Day Break as they are released on ABC.com. Eager viewers will instead be greated by a message stating that Only viewers within the United States can watch these full-length episodes.

I’ll see if I can find a work around…

To celebrate 20 glorious years, New England Comics is putting together “The Tick’s 20th Anniversary Special Edition #1,” featuring almost 30 creators (with more to be announced), including creator Ben Englund…….’s father, Richard Englund. (Okay, Ben too. But his dad?  I can’t work with my dad on the the VCR, let alone a comic.) According to the press release, “the creators were each asked to to write and draw a one page (in some special cases, 2 pages) Tick short tale as if they had total control over the character.”

While the list isn’t generally populated with the “big” names in comics right now, there are definitely some interesting names, from Fred Hembeck to Arthur Suydam (who also does one of the two covers – you might recognize him from all those Marvel Zombie covers he does). For a character that’s spawned two TV shows, Taco Bell toys, and a moderately not bad Super Nintendo game, it’s a happy 20th birthday indeed! Click through HERE for the full press release and list of creators, and look for the 48-page book in April, for $5.95.