Episode 150 - No Topic at All

It's episode 150 and we celebrate with a free for all. There's no particular topic, no commercials, no breaks, but we manage to touch on Prince of Persia, Burn Notice, a quick answer to Lost detractors and a lot of general insanity. Enjoy.

MP3 File

Episode 149 - Death Becomes Us

The best stories have great death scenes. The great ones have death scenes that make you cry "WTF!" Inspired by the article in Sci-Fi Wire (http://scifiwire.com/2010/05/13-sci-fi-movie-and-tv-de.php), the Hideout crew - with new member Ayana - take a look at death scenes in movies, TV & comics that have the fans screaming 'WTF!" long after they are over. Enjoy.

MP3 File

Night of the Living Beatles

Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher have bought the rights to a graphic novel, titled Paul is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion. The book depicts the Beatles as zombies. The plot line roughly revolves around John Lennon killing the other three of his former band mates, which results in an undead tour fraught with attacks from zombie hunter Mick Jagger and ninja Yoko Ono.

San Diego Gets the Super-Sized Treatment

Morgan Spurlock, the Oscar-nominated director of the documentary Super Size Me, will direct a feature documentary about San Diego Comic-Con International titled Comic-Con Episode Four: A Fan’s Hope. Spurlock plans to follow seven different people from around the world “as they descend upon the veritable Mecca of fandom and experience the rapture that is Comic-Con.” Shooting will begin shortly and culminate at this year’s show. The film will be exec produced by Stan Lee, Joss Whedon, and Harry Knowles, and produced by Spurlock’s partner Jeremy Chilnick and Thomas Tull (300, The Dark Knight, Watchmen).

Prequel Going Ape

James Franco has landed the lead role in Rise of the Apes, Fox's upcoming reboot of/prequel to the Planet of the Apes franchise, according to Deadline. The actor will play a scientist whose search for a cure to Alzheimer's disease inadvertently produces advanced intelligence in an ape test subject. Franco's character thus sets in motion the chain of events that will eventually lead to an ape revolution, although how much of that we'll see onscreen is unclear at this point. Rise of the Apes has been in development for several years and started life as a script called Caesar, loosely based around the ape messiah played by Roddy McDowall in 1972's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. In that one, Caesar was the son of chimps Cornelius (McDowall) and Zira (Kim Hunter), who traveled back in time from our ape-dominated future. In the current version, the time-travel angle has been dropped and Caesar (if he's still called that) gets his smarts via human experimentation.

Taking the Sexy out of Giant Robots

Megan Fox has chosen not to return for the third Transformers movie, her spokesperson says, following reports of a dispute between the actress and director Michael Bay. The 24-year-old actress played Mikaela Banes in the first 2007 live-action film as well as its sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallenin 2009, along with Shia LaBeouf. The movies made Fox an international sex symbol. "Megan Fox will not be starring in Transformers 3," People magazine quoted the actress' spokesperson as saying. "It was her decision not to return. She wishes the franchise the best." A Paramount Pictures spokesperson said Fox's "option was not picked up for the third movie." There was no immediate comment from Bay's spokespeople. Transformers 3 is set for release on July 1, 2011.

Episode 148 - Cause I'm a War Machine

The long awaited Hideout review of Iron Man II has arrived and it's not what you think (unless you think it's a overly opinionated review of a summer blockbuster then it's exactly what you think.) Drunk billionaires, big ass guns and hot chicks in skin tight leather, and that's just the Hideout crew, wait until you hear about the movie. Enjoy.

MP3 File

A Cable’s History of Stan Lee

The History Channel is teaming up with comic book legend Stan Lee to create a new “reality” series, Stan Lee’s Superhumans. The creator of Spider-Man and the X-Men will co-host the show with Daniel Browning Smith, who calls himself, “The World’s Most Flexible Man.” On the new show Lee and Browning Smith will spotlight people who have remarkable abilities that derive from genetic differences.

Gettin’ British Wit It

Mark Millar is working with Titan Publishing on the September launch of CLiNT, a newsstand magazine targeting males from 16-30, which will include Millar and John Romita, Jr.’s Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Walls. The 100-page monthly magazine will also feature comics from BBC Presenter Jonathan Ross and stand-up comedian Frankie Boyle. The Jonathan Ross contribution sounds like it will consist of reprints of his vampires vs. gangsters Image comic Turf.

Hugo’s Red Skull

Marvel Studios has announced that veteran character actor Hugo Weaving will play the key role of The Red Skull in The First Avenger: Captain America, which begins production next month in London. Introduced in Captain America #1 in 1941, the original Red Skull was George John Maxon, an American industrialist turned Nazi saboteur, but the character in the movie has been identified by Marvel Studios as Johann Schmidt, who was actually the second Red Skull in the comic continuity. Schmidt, a German orphan who survived a harsh upbringing, was working as a bellhop in a Berlin hotel when he was chosen by Hitler for special training that the Fuhrer supervised himself.

FBI Stops Scan

The FBI has shut down comic scan site htmlcomics.com and seized its servers in a raid supported by a consortium of comic publishers, according to an announcement by Katten Muchen Rosenman, the law firm representing the publishers consortium. Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Bongo, Archie, Conan Properties, Mirage, and United Media were involved. Htmlcomics.com was the largest site offering scanned American comics, according to the announcement, with an average of 1.6 million visits a day and over 6.6 million pages of comics from 5,700 series.

Episode 147 - I'm Working for Mel Brooks

On this episode we celebrate the genius of Mel Brooks by talking about one of the funniest movies ever, Blazing Saddles. Black Sherrifs, fast guns, punching cattle and the truth about eating beans. Enjoy.

MP3 File

More Frankenstein

Dynamite Entertainment has announced the July release of Dean Koontz’ Frankenstein: Prodigal Son Vol.2 #1. Chuck Dixon, who wrote the first five issues of the comic book adaptation of Dean Koontz’ novel, returns to complete the transition from bestseller to comic book, while Scott Cohn is set to handle the art chores.

ABC Goes Super Too

Regardless of what happens with NBC's Heroes, a new group of superheroes will grace our TV screens this fall now that ABC has picked up No Ordinary Family. The superhero family action series stars Michael Chiklis (The Shield, Fantastic Four) and Dexter's Julie Benz as a dad and mom, who, along with their kids, develop superpowers after a plane crash in the Amazon River. No Ordinary Family comes from Greg Berlanti (Eli Stone) and Jon Feldman (Tru Calling) and also stars Kay Panabaker, Jimmy Bennett, Tate Donovan and Autumn Reeser, according to The Hollywood Reporter's Live Feed blog.

Flashforward Canceled, Chuck and V Renewed

Good news for Chuck and V fans! NBC has ordered a fourth season of Chuck and ABC has picked up V for a second season, The Hollywood Reporter's LiveFeed.com reported. Both series are expected to get 13-episode orders. Meanwhile, as expected, ABC decided to cancel the ratings-challenged FlashForward, along with Better Off Ted, Scrubs and Romantically Challenged, according to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello.

NBC Drops Dead Weight and Goes Super

NBC picked up the Batman-esque-sounding The Cape, along with three other series to round out its scripted series orders, and Chuck was officially renewed for a fourth season, the network announced today in a statement. The other series included the dramas Outlaw and Harry's Law and the comedy Friends With Benefits. Meanwhile, news has broken that NBC has canceled the ailing superhero drama Heroes after four seasons, according to The Hollywood Reporter's Live Feed blog. The news is hardly a surprise: The show has been limping along in the ratings for several seasons. After ending its fourth season to terrible ratings, speculation had been going on for months as to whether Heroes would get a shot at one final season, or perhaps even a two-hour movie, to finish up its story.

Episode 146 - The Blues

Once upon a time Jake and Elwood was on a mission from God to save the Penguin from losing her school in one of the greatest and strangest comedies ever created - the Blue Brothers. Yes there were Saturday Night Live sketches to movies that are actually funny, and we can prove it Enjoy.

MP3 File

Apple Valley gets a Bone

A group of parents, teachers, and media specialists from the Rosemont-Apple Valley-Eagan school district in suburban Minneapolis voted 10-1 to keep Jeff Smith’s Bone graphic novels in the school libraries. Ramona DeLay, whose son Hardy brought home the fourth book in the Bone series from the school library, objected to references to smoking, drinking, gambling, and to what she perceived as “sexual situations between characters” in the Bone graphic novel.

Toy Stories

Paramount, which scored a major success with Hasbro’s Transformers, has extended its deal with toy company Mattel by acquiring the rights to make a live action adventure movie based on the Magic 8-Ball, a predictive toy, which contains a die with 20 pre-set answers. Hollywood’s headlong pursuit of “toyetic” properties, which is evident in numerous projects currently in development including Battleship, Stretch Armstrong, Risk, and Major Mason, made it likely that a studio would try to make a Magic 8-Ball movie, especially since Universal is already prepping a film based on Hasbro’s Ouija Board Game.

Captain America Gets a Different Kind of Date

Production Weekly is reporting that Marvel Studios has already opened an office at Shepperton Studios in the U.K. in preparation for the commencement of principal photography on The First Avenger: Captain America, which is scheduled to begin on June 28th for a July 22nd, 2011 release.

Batman Gets a Date

Warner Bros. has staked a claim on July 20th, 2012 for the sequel to the hugely successful The Dark Knight. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Nolan is also starting to work with David Goyer to fashion the story for his third Batman movie. The film doesn’t yet have a title, and no date has been set for the start of production, but the July, 2012 debut means that the Batman opus will be Nolan’s next project.

Episode 145 - Alex Keaton in a Time Machine

On this episode we discuss Back to the Future. one of our favorite movie franchises on the planet. Enjoy.

MP3 File

Young Justice, GO!!!

Cartoon Network announced a number of new shows in its upfront presentations this week, including new DC superteam show Young Justice, an animated Mad, and a reboot of Looney Tunes. Young Justice, produced by Warner Bros. Animation with Sam Register exec producing, will include Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Superboy, Miss Martian and Artemis. The inclusion of Superboy is interesting, since the rights to the character have been in dispute.

3D Won’t Improve it, But What the Heck

The release date for the Green Hornet film has been pushed back from December 22nd to January 14th to accommodate a 3D release; 3D screens are largely committed in December. Priest, which has been planned as a 3D release for some time has been moved from January 14th to March 4th to make room for the switch.

Alternative Archie

In a step that continues Archie Comics’ move into the late 20th century, the company has announced that its first openly gay character will appear in Veronica #202. The story, “Isn’t It Bromantic?,” introduces new character Kevin Keller, who’s the new hunk in Riverdale. Veronica sets her sights on him and pursues him, while Kevin tries to let her down easy.

Kill South Park

Comedy Central bleeped mentions of the Prophet Muhammad in this week’s episode of South Park, after the edgy 200th episode last week led to death threats against creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The censorship extended to Kyle’s final speech, in which he talked about the dangers of “intimidation and fear,” without referencing any religious topics.