The voice cast of "Justice League: Doom" , the DC Animated Movie to follow "Batman: Year One" will feature Nathan Filion ( "Firefly", "Castle") as Green Lantern, Tim Daly ("Eyes", "Private Practice") as Superman, Kevin Conroy ( Batman: The Animated Series", "Justice League") as Batman, Michael Rosenbaum ("Smallville", "Justice League") as The Flash, and more to be revealed later.          NBC is developing "Revolution" a new adventure thriller series from J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke. I don't even need to know any more details, they had me at J.J. Abrams. Now that's a recipe for success.
         The cast of the movie "Dark Shadows" directed by Tim Burton has been revealed. Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman, Jackie Earle Haley as grounskeeper Willie Loomis, Jonny Lee Miller as Roger Collins, Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, and Chloe Moretz as her teenage daughter Carolyn. The new movie tells the story of Barnabas Collins, turned into a vampire by a witch whose heart he broke. She entombs him for 200 years, until he emerges in 1972 where the story really begins. Originally, a daytime drama on ABC starring Jonathan Frid as Barnabas, the series ran from 1966 to 1971 and is the basis for the new movie. There was a reboot of the franchise in 1991 starring Ben Cross as Barnabas and also starring Joanna Going and Joseph Gordon-Levitt that ran for 12 episodes.
         

        Terra Nova aired on Fox Monday Night and the show was better than I expected. They took a few classic sci-fi premises and managed to completely incorporate them into a brilliant new sci-fi adventure. Hopefully, this show will have the kind of success that will allow the story to fully unfold.

 

 

                                                                                      

         I recently watched "Season of the Witch" starring Nicholas Cage and Ron Perlman. The movie was the story of two medival knight who after fighting in The Crusades are drawn into service by The Church to transport a witch who unleashed a plague to a group of monks who can break her spell. The movie was better than advertised and quite a surprising suspense and horror movie.

          The season finale of "Alphas" aired on Monday and the season ended in grand fashion, and much to my delight SyFy picked the show up for a second season. The show is about people with extraordinary powers and abilities who solve mysteries and combat enemies who are gifted like them.

 

 

 

 

                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                

     Cartoon Network premiered new episodes of their Friday Night animated block. All of the shows are debuting new episodes. The line-up is as follows:6;00 p.m. "Batman: The Brave and The Bold" ,6:30 p.m. Young Justice, 7:00 p.m. Generator Rex, 7:30 p.m. Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, 8:00 p.m. Star Wars: The Clone Wars which is followed at 8:30 p.m. with a rebroadcast episode of the new "Thundercats" series.

                                                                                

     Marvel Comics are coming out with a group of graphic novels called Season One which retells and updates the origins of The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Daredevil, and Spider-Man. The one-shot books launch starting in Feb. 2012 with Fantastic Four and ending with Spider-Man in May 2012.

                                                                                              

    "The Immortals" a movie that features Henry Cavill, the new Superman, is opening on 11.11.11. The movie is an high octane action packed version of the mythical tale of Theseus. The movie also features Mickey Rourke, Luke Evans, John Hurt, Kellan Lutz, Frieda Pinto, and Isabel Lucas.

                                                                           

                                                                                   

     "Marvel's X-Men Anime" to debut on G4 on Friday, Oct. 21. X-Men will join "Iron Man" and "Wolverine" anime on the G4 network. A another anime series "Blade" will air on G4 this winter.

                                                                                

                                                                        

     "X-Men: The First Class" debuted on DVD and Blu-ray last week. I watched this movie over the weekend I had to reassess my reasons for not seeing this movie in the theater. The movie was far better than I expected it would be. Although, I had to give it low marks for not maintaining continuity with the other X-Men movies and that includes "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". I would recommend that if you don't see any other superhero movie ( and I don't say that lightly) that you see this movie.

                                                                                                                                                                        

           

         And the remakes just keep on coming, I just saw a trailer for a remake ( and this will be the third time this movie has been made) of "The Thing". The original novella that was made into the 1951 movie "The Thing from Another World" and is perhaps one of the most chilling and creepiest pieces of sci-fi/ horror ever written. The 1982 version of "The Thing" starring Kurt Russell really tapped into the horror aspect of the story and this remake promises to raise the game.

 

 

 

 

      

         "Thor" was released this Tuesday on DVD/Blu-ray. The movie directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring newcomer Chris Hemsworth as title character was the next to last puzzle piece setting the stage for next summer's blockbuster"Avengers' movie. The movie also stars Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings, Clark Gregg, and Stellan Skarsgard. Incidently, Stellan Skarsgard's son, "True Blood" actor Alexander Skarsgard was a fan favored pick to play the role of "Thor".

 

                 

                                                                                  

      Lastly, "Contagion" ruled the weekend box office making 23.1 million dollars, " The Help" was number two taking in 8.5 million dollars, and at number three "Warrior" taking in 5.6 million dollars.

                                                                                                            

                                                                               

      Last week, DC Comics released Justice League #1 part of the new 52 title relaunch; talk about hitting the ground running. The issue written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jim Lee reintroduces us to The Justice League takes us to a new beginning for the team. Without giving anything away, it's like we are meeting these characters for the first time while they meet each other for the first time. I didn't want the issue to end, and I can hardly wait for the next one. 

        

       I recently watched the movie "Priest" and I was definitely pleasantly surprised. The movie was quite good and I was impressed by the plot, the story, and the cast. I never get enough of good sci-fi and good vampire movies and this is a combination of both. The cast features Paul Bettany ("The DaVinci Code", "Legion"), Karl Urban ("Star Trek", "Red"), Cam Gigandet ( "Never Back Down", "Twilight"), Maggie Q ("Mission: Impossible III", "Live Free and Die Hard"), Christopher Plummer ("The Sound of Music", "Up") and also includes Lily Collins, daughter of musician Phil Collins, who stars in the movie "The Blind Side" and also stars in the upcoming movies "Abduction" and "Snow White". I recommend this movie if you haven't already seen it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

        Another movie that was quite surprising was "The Warrior's Way", this movie was an entertaining martial arts/ western hybrid, if you can believe that. As impressed as I was by the plot and the story, the cast was the biggest surprise of all. Dong-gun Jang plays the main character, an assassin who decides to forsake his path and instead chooses to protect a child he was supposed to kill. He flees to The West to escape his clan and ends up in a town in the middle of the American badlands. Of course, he becomes attached to the townspeople especially a beautiful young woman named Lynne, so when they become endangered, he picks up his sword again. The cast includes some easily recognizable faces, such as Kate Bosworth ( "Blue Crush", "Superman Returns"), Geoffrey Rush ( "Shakespeare in Love", "Pirates of the Caribbean"), Danny Huston ("30 Days of Night", "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"), and Tony Cox ("Bad Santa", "Date Movie"). The movie is a bit bloody and a whole lot of fun.