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Roger Ebert on Chuck Jones

Film critic Roger Ebert reminisces on the bygone day of the theatrical cartoon short and reviews three great Chuck Jones' Warner Bros. cartoons, including Duck Amuck where the shot below comes from.

Holiday season releases scheduled for DVD

A lot of movies have come out since November that almost made it worth going to the theatre for. But then you wait a few weeks and the sense of urgency seems to fade. And here's why. Below is a list of the scheduled DVD releases of recent movies, many of which are still in theatres now:

March
7 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
14 - Good Night and Good Luck
14 - A History of Violence
14 - Capote
28 - King Kong

April
"Early" - The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
25 - Syriana

No word yet when Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash bio pic starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon hits DVD, though April or May seems likely.

Real Life Superheroes

Fed up with crime in their hometown of Indianaoplis, a couple of guys have decided to become superheroes. For real. See here. Comics rumor columnist Rich Johnston followed up this item with an interview with one of the gang here (scroll down to "Interview with a Superhero").

For the rest of us, though there are a few other ways to become superheroes, such as on stage, or as part of Stan Lee's new reality TV show.

Yikes.

Justice League Unlimited Update

“Late spring/early summer”

That’s the unofficial word about when we’ll see new episodes, sparking anger and frustration among the show’s fans. The leading theory as to the reason for the continued delay is to time it with the release of Superman Returns, or perhaps with the direct-to-DVD animated Superman movie, that reportedly takes off from the 90s Superman animated series.

In the meantime, the first season of Justice League will be released as a DVD boxed set in March, along with the first season of Batman Beyond.

Dwayne McDuffie, a producer and head writer on the series talks about past and future episodes of the series on a recent podcast at wordballon.com.

There hasn’t been a new episode since September 2005, and it still isn’t on Cartoon Network’s schedule, but news about upcoming episodes still continue to leak out. So what’s coming up when the show finally does return to the air?

First up will be “Flash and Substance”, which formally introduces the Flash’s Rogues Gallery, the Flash Museum and his future wife (in the comics) Linda Park. As an added bonus, the Trickster will be voiced by Mark Hamill, who played the same character in the Flash live-action TV series, which was released this month on DVD. Deadman will make his animated debut. Another episode, written by Paul Dini will feature Supergirl joining the Legion of Superheroes.

Read descriptions of most of this season;s episodes here.

As for the future of the DC animated universe, Teen Titans is over (the final episode is airing as I type this), and it’s likely the remaining episodes of this season’s JLU will be the last. However, Krypto and The Batman continue, a new Legion of Superheroes cartoon is on the way, and a new Superman series will probably debut within the next year or so, all unrelated to the animated universe started by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm with Batman: The Animated Series in 1992.

Batman.... One Year Later

Peter Tomasi takes over as editor on Batman as of March, when the One Year Later timeframe kicks in with an 8-part story arc written by James (Starman) Robinson, which will run through Batman and Detective for four months. Tomasi was Robinson’s editor on Starman following the death of Archie Goodwin.

In an interview with Newsarama, Tomasi talks about getting Robinson on Batman, teases the storyline and reveals how he sees Batman, which is a departure from how he’s been portrayed over the past several years:

Bruce/Batman to me, is not driven by the death of his parents anymore. Yes, it was the catalyst and a driving force at first, and yes, seeing his parents murdered before his young eyes is something that will stay with him forever, but I don't feel he's haunted by it anymore. What Bruce does now is honor their memory each and every night by going out into Gotham as its protector and in a strange way its advocate. Because what he does each and every night is saying something to the people of the city: This city will never fall prey to the evildoers. It may be banged up and kicked around sometimes, but it's always gonna get back up and keep fighting, keep living, because as trite as it may sound, to keep on keeping on is what it's all about. Evil and darkness will not win. Good will triumph as long as you don't turn your head - or as that old saying goes (I'm paraphrasing): all that takes for evil to win is for a good man to say/or do nothing.

He won’t yet reveal who will be taking over the books following Robinson, but he confirms Bruce Wayne will still be Batman and Tim Drake will still be Robin (though this may not necessarily be true at the outset of the storyline). We will also see more stories featuring Batman AND Robin. Unclear is what is happening with Nightwing.

All in all, it sounds promising.

Read the whole interview, where he also talks about Green Lantern here.

Ultimate Avengers: The Animated Movie

Ultimate Avengers: The (animated) Movie (featuring Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and more) comes directly to DVD on February 21. The movie is based on the first storyline of The Ultimates, by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch, and is based on Hitch's designs.

Clerks 2 Teaser Trailer

With the failure of Jersey Girl, and his abandonment of the big budget shot with The Green Hornet, Kevin Smith goes back to his roots with Clerks 2.

See the first teaser trailer here.