Another live blog warning: If you’re a live blog fan, or a NASCAR fan, or both, we’ve got a couple going this weekend for the race. So if you can’t make it to the race, hang out in front of the computer and check out the live blogs we’ll have this weekend from the raceway.

On to the links:

there just aren't that many movies like avatar. guess what? clash of the titans isn't one of them.

This has to be the worst case scenario for movie theater owners around the world. If 3-D really is just a fad that already is getting old, then there are hundreds of theater owners who are getting ready to shell out tens of thousands of dollars on a technology that might be antiquated in six months. Those are the kinds of things that can put small, independently owned theaters — like the Casino Theatre in Mount Pocono and Pocono Community Theater in East Stroudsburg — out of business. They don’t have the money to spend on 3-D technology, but they’re being forced to, at the very least, highly consider buying the equipment to upgrade their theaters. If it really is just a fad that people will be turning their nose up at in five years, those theaters are probably in danger of going out of business. That is a crying shame. I still haven’t bothered going to see a 3-D movie, I have absolutely no inclination whatsoever no or anytime soon to buy a 3-D TV, and I certainly don’t want to have to wear special glasses just to watch said TV. Whether 3-D is a fad or not we probably won’t know for about a year or two until all of these planned movies get released. But if it is just a fad and studios continue to hold independent theaters hostage by practically forcing them to buy 3-D technology, it could be the death blow for two-or-three screen theaters. But at least Michael Moore is there to save them all!

Kevin Smith knows he’s being a complete tool about his criticism of movie critics. He knows critics are the ones that jump started his career, but he’s still got a bone to pick with them for the treatment of his last few movies. Reading this impromptu interview, you can really sense the conflict in him. He doesn’t want to hate critics, but at the same time, he’s passionate about his work and doesn’t want to be trashed. Who would? But geez, why is he so bitter? On Rotten Tomatoes, of the movies he’s been involved with behind the camera, only two of his movies are real duds, Jersey Girl and Cop Out. Jay and Silent Bob didn’t get great reviews, but I don’t think it’s the kind of movie that’s supposed to since it was one, long (hysterical) inside joke. Even Mallrats, complete with some of the worst acting of the last 15 years, almost managed to be Certified Fresh. So he really doesn’t have much room to bitch since he’s got a pretty good career, critically and commercially. And yet I still love hearing him spew.

If you don’t know who Paul Dano is just by hearing his name, you probably know his filmography as the mute kid in Little Miss Sunshine and the boy preacher in There Will Be Blood. Or maybe you know him because you’ve seen him playing football on Thanksgiving around Stroudsburg with his family. He’s got Pocono family connections, and his dad still lives in Wooddale, which you would know if you read my story last year when I talked to him. He’s got a pretty big 12 months coming up, culminating with next year’s Cowboys and Aliens, so if you’re not on the Dano bandwagon by now, there’s still room. You just have to squeeze in the back somewhere.

no hiding the baby bump this time

Hooray for Always Sunny! The sitcom that prides itself on being unconventional and making sure it doesn’t ever look like anything else on TV has decided to break another TV rule -- hiding the baby bump. It’s a time-honored TV tradition to hide the baby, mastered by the likes of Meredith Baxter Birney and dozens of others, including this year on In Plain Sight. But instead of writing around the real-life pregnancy of Kaitlin Olson as Sweet Dee, they’re going to make fun of it as only they can — with a whodunnit episode. Well played. Although I think I may be offended if she’s still drinking. I think, but I can’t be sure.

My video game playing days are pretty far behind me, mostly because for the last 10 years, when I’m playing video games I’m worried I’m missing something on TV. And I’m too lazy to wait for the games to load. So yeah, I’ve even gotten too lazy to play video games. There are kids stoned out of their brain playing WoW reading this right now thinking “Wait, what? You can even be lazy enough not to play video games?” Yes, yes you can! Well, if I did still play video games, I’d be super-crazy excited for this new Spider-Man video game coming out in September. Take that for what it’s worth.

I may have to rethink my Thor stance too. For the last two years, I couldn’t have given a flying fish about it. I never read the comic, hated the cartoon and hated when he crossed into the Spider-Man or X-Men comic book world. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s my least favorite superhero, but he was close. In a dead heat with Plastic Man and Ant-Man, at the very least. After seeing the trailer that just leaked online that got screened at Comic-Con though, I’m starting to come around. Yeah, it’s that good. I barely can understand the actual story, but you get the gist — Norse god banished from the promised land falls to Earth and has to live out a human existence in the hopes he can someday return home. It’s not the first time we’ve seen a story like this — Howard the Duck, anyone? — and it certainly won’t be the best, I’m pretty sure E.T. will be able to hold on to that title. But Marvel is developing quite the reputation for churning out fantastic comic book franchise movies. Thor looks like it might be the next in line.

"i'm trying to solve a murder here!"

It’s criminal that my introduction to the Mexican standoff doesn’t make this list of the best movie standoffs ever — Reservoir Dogs. And you don’t even have to pick one or the other, you can just say both! The double-dare you, posterized Mr. White and Mr. Pink-on-the-floor gun-pointing match, or the movie-ending three-man tag-team of Mr. White, Nice Guy Eddie and Joe. And I hate to go all John Woo on everyone since he already made the list, but the complex, foreboding Travolta-Cage standoff at the beginning of Face Off takes a second viewing to realize just how important it is. An underrated one? Robert Pastorelli and Dennis Farina at the end of Striking Distance. Now if you’ll all forgive me for making a Striking Distance reference, I’d appreciate it.

I’m starting to come around on the idea of Michael Scott leaving The Office. I’m not saying it’s going to ever be as good as it was in the second and third seasons again — few shows will ever be that funny — and it certainly won’t be as funny in the short term after Carell leaves. But what do they have to lose? The show has been heading square into the abyss of mediocrity for about two years now, and even though it’s still funny, it’s been in danger of Entourage-like danger of turning unfunny. Still not sure what I’d like to see happen, whether someone should take his corner office, whether they should leave it open or whether they should add a new cast member. I just know it won’t be hurting anything by having him leave, and it could actually help. Just as long as they retire the line:

We’re all set for Aug. 6 at noon, a week from Friday. I’m gonna lay down some ground rules next week so we don’t get a repeat of the July 2 chat, just so we know what you expect from me and what I expect from posters. Nothing crazy, I just don’t want to spend the whole time answering things like “How come my question isn’t showing up?” when it’s not supposed to and I don’t want to lead a discussion on why Phish may or may not be the best band in the world.

So that’s coming next week. We set a record last time for most comments in a Pocono Record live chat, and I’d love to get even more this time.

I’ve been putting off the PopRox semiannual Trailer Review Day for too long, so dive in:

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

You know, for something as juvenile as Harry Potter, they sure make some bad-@ss trailers. This is something like three in a row that despite me never reading a word of Harry Potter, have gotten me pretty excited for the upcoming movie. There isn’t one second of this trailer wasted with stupid dialogue or throw-away kisses, corny dialogue or plot hints. Nope, just action, conflict, explosions and creepy words of wisdom from Ralph Fiennes as Voldermort. THIS is how you do a trailer, people. Not that hard. The sad part? It’s a kids’ movie that has showed you all up. One problem — how much of the trailer is in Part I, and how much is in Part II? The trailer goes out of its way to distinguish the two parts of the final book in the series, but that makes it confusing to figure out which of the action is in which part of the movie. If I got to see it in November and don’t get some kind of nasty beatdown scene with Voldermort, I’ll … well, I’ll go to see the next one for the fight scene. But I won’t be happy! Oooo, I have a good punishment. I’ll spoil the ending! I’ll go opening night, see it, and if I’m not pleased, I’ll basically type out the script of the last 15 minutes right here. (Commencing maniacal laugh … NOW!) The trailer is clearly divided into two parts — notice the definitive break at the 1:32 mark — but that doesn’t necessarily mean what happens in the first part of the trailer is contained in the first part of the movie and everything after 1:32 is in the second part of the movie. So that’s a little frustrating. But I’ll be there. GRADE: A-

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Director David Fincher is a little heavy-handed at times (Se7en), a little preachy at others (Fight Club), and just flat-out boring at others (no way did Zodiac need more than 2.5 hours). No matter what you think of his movies — and I’m a fan, incidentally — the man makes some hall-of-fame-level trailers. Is there a trailer HOF? If there isn’t, there should be, with Spider-Man 2 and Independence Day among the first inductees. Fincher’s latest trailer from The Social Network is just as good as any trailer he’s ever made, maybe better. Jesse Eisenberg is quickly becoming a favorite of mine, I’ve loved him in both Squid and the Whale and Adventureland. As good as he was in those, this has the feel of the movie that’s going to put him on the tongue of every casting agent in Hollywood. Not exactly enthused to see Rashida Jones (age 34) trying to pull off a college girl though. She graduated from Harvard in 1997 — almost 10 years before the Facebook stuff actually happened at Harvard. With any luck, she’ll actually be a professor or adviser or something, but it certainly doesn’t look that way in the trailer. And let’s face it — everyone wants to find out the original reasons behind why we find it necessary to waste hours on end uploading our iPhone photos of us getting loaded with 20 friends at a St. Patrick’s Day parade to our Facebook page. Perfect use of Creep too, sung by a kids’ gospel choir. GRADE: B+

TRON: LEGACY

After the first trailer was a rip-off from the worst part of Phantom Menace — the pod racing — I figured it would have to take The Dude, Walter and a resurrected Donny to get to me to see this movie. It was just plain awful and made no sense. After the latest Comic-Con trailer … I’m weakening. Now there’s a somewhat interesting story mixed with characters we might possibly even care about and some impressive CGI work. I’m still not on board, since I didn’t like the first one 30 years ago. But I’ll at least put it back on the table for consideration. GRADE: B+

DEVIL

Don’t let the trailer or other advertisments fool you for a second — this is NOT an M. Night Shyamalan movie. Not by a longshot. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing is up to you. But for them to tout it as such, I’m calling BS. All Night gets on this is a “story” credit. Essentially, that means he went to the studio with an idea and the studio bought it from him for whatever insane amount they felt like knee-jerk spending that day while Night’s agent said, “I don’t know, we have a meeting at Sony this afternoon …” Then the studio started tweeking, then prodding, then pushing, and before long, the script is unrecognizable to what Night originally conceived and he merely receives story credit. To put that in perspective — Quentin Tarantino wrote the original script for Natural Born Killers, but it was massively changed from his original vision. He asked for his name to be taken off the credits as a writer, but the studio refused since he was the hot “name” in 1995. So instead of being a writer, he’s listed as “Story by Quentin Tarantino.” Not every story credit goes like that, but there’s almost always this kind of behind-the-scenes crap that goes along with it. So to say it’s a Night movie is being intentionally deceptive and reaks of desparation. Not to mention there’s no one even remotely recognizable in this and the people who are in it may not have made it to middle school. And no, I’m not on a first name basis with Night, it’s just a frigg of a lot easier to type and spell than “Shyamalan.” GRADE: F

RANGO

Here’s the bright side. It’s better than the cryptically stupid, stoner-special teaser trailer the studio put out a couple weeks ago that just had the fish swimming in air across the screen.  That teaser is even worse now since it appears that fish has little or nothing to do with the movie. So my judgement is already clouded since that teaser did nothing for me. The new trailer isn’t making up for it by copying off North by Northwest and making cactus jokes. I’m clearly not the person to ask about this because I hated that first teaser so much, but the new edition isn’t the worst thing in the world. It just isn’t that good either. GRADE: C-

THE AMERICAN

It’s impossible to make George Clooney look bad at this point. It just can’t be done, and it’s silly to try. So any trailer he’s going to be in for the foreseeable future is going to look good because, well, George Clooney looks good. But you have to get past that, otherwise you end up seeing The Men Who Stare at Goats for no good reason whatsoever. The American looks OK for the most part, even if we’re treading back into the “one last hit” territory that’s already been covered about a bazillion times. But we’ve got some more false advertising going on here — the “acclaimed director Anton Corbijn” still. Do people think IMDB isn’t available for the next couple months or something? Corbijn is the ”acclaimed” director behind one movie, the very good Control from 2007. Before that, it was nothing but music videos. That gets you “acclaimed” status? Can’t we say something more like “U2’s Favorite Director Anton Corbijn” or “Potential One-Hit Wonder Anton Corbijn”? Those are more fitting. That bugged me throughout the whole thing. GRADE: C-

LITTLE FOCKERS

Think you’ve heard every which way to make a joke out of saying “Focker” and getting away with it? Then apparently you’ve never heard a grandmother refer to her granchildren as Little Fockers. I know my mother-in-law always refers to my daughter as that Little Sadowski. What, everyone doesn’t do that? So we’re off to a bad start already. The charm of Meet the Parents was that it didn’t go to conventional, generic comedy places to make jokes. In Meet the Parents, there might be three or four really laugh out loud moments. What made it a classic comedy you watch every time it’s on TV was the little moments of hilarity that put people in everyday uncomfortable situations to watch them get themselves out of it. Some lost luggage. A groggy, late-night mistake. A wrong turn in the dinner table conversation that ends with you milking cats. Those things are funny. But you can only laugh at Robert De Niro’s heavy pronunciation of Focker for so long before it gets boring. Guess what? It just got boring. I thought the same thing about the trailer for Meet the Fockers and liked that a good deal, so perhaps I’m overreacting. But I don’t think so. GRADE: D

ok, that's a little impressive

Just a couple years ago, it was considered pretty groundbreaking when a movie cast/team would show up at Comic-Con to promote a movie that wasn’t premiering for another year. When the Iron Man cast did it in 2007 to tout the 2008 release, trailer in hand, people thought it was kinda weird — until fans kept talking about it for 10 months, the movie opened at over $100 million and it turned into the surprise franchise of the decade.

After that? Not so weird. So on they came, every movie with any semblance of comic book/sci-fi/pop culture interest, some for movies that ended up failing to live up to expectations (Watchmen) and others who used the venerable pop culture overload to springboard to fame and fortune (Twilight: New Moon from last year).

Now it’s common practice. Summer blockbusters for 2011 almost need to have some kind of presence or risk falling behind on the geek buzz meter. If you’ve never seen that meter, it’s an old C3PO watch, btw. Jon Favreau said as much on Stern this morning when he randomly called in to talk Cowboys & Aliens. He said no one really knew that much about the project — an obscure graphic novel — so he practically begged Harrison Ford to show up at this thing to make sure people put this movie on their radar. He did, reluctantly.

soon to be playing louis ck in the movie

But forget about 2011, it’s already old news, especially when Marvel trots out the entire cast of its 2012 Avengers movie, director Joss Whedon finally announces he will be the director and runs a “future of pop cutlure” panel with JJ Abrams. The future? Apparently it’s to saturate a movie in the public psyche so hard that we show up like zombies at the ticket window, practically stretching our arms in front of our chests. At least that has to be Marvel’s idea by bringing the cast of a movie not scheduled to shoot for another year to a place where people will ask nothing but questions like, “So what’s the movie gonna be like?” What’s it gonna be like? NOBODY KNOWS! The script isn’t even finished yet.

That doesn’t stop people from wanting to know what’s next … you know, like what will happen after the three movies that won’t be fully released for two years. I’m all for looking to the future and trying to find out as much news as you can, but wow. Let me dissect 2011 before we start worrying about the 2014 movie slate.

Couple other items of note:

–Still nothing from X-Men: First Class. This should have been the coming out party for the new cast. Instead, not even the confirmed actors like James McAvoy, Kevin Bacon or director Matthew Vaughn could show up just to tell fans, “Don’t worry guys, everything’s under control.” I’ve been thinking it’s 50-50 the movie would make its June 3 release date and be good. Now I’d say it’s 25-75.

–TV panels would be my favorite part Comic-Con. Yeah, it’d be cool to have seen The Avengers cast gather together for the first time, but I think I’d actually like to hear the process of how the episodes of Fringe come together more.

just to be clear, this was the smile and look on jimmy dugan's face when he told the crowd to kiss his rosey red @ss

–If I was someone like Angelina Jolie, who would stir up such a crowd at a place like Comic-Con it should be illegal for her to go there, I’d go out of my way to make sure I never have a movie released anywhere near that weekend. She should have it in her contract that every movie she makes should be released July 16 so that she never has to go to this thing. She looks like she’s having about as much fun at this thing as me right before a dentist appointment. Now Leonardo DiCaprio — he’s got it down. Premiere with a $65 million a week before and you don’t have to sniff that place. Inception has a legitimate shot to stay on top of the box office until mid-August after another big weekend.

–I’m starting to think I’m the only one in the world who saw the original Tron to know how much it sucked. I guess I was only 8 when I saw it, so maybe I just didn’t get it at the time. but I have no interest in seeing Tron Legacy in December, an updating of the 22nd biggest movie of 1982.

we'll never know who he is, but it's probably better that way

The only thing important enough to tear me away from Comic-con news is a question: “Who is Don Draper?” If it weren’t such a perplexing question, then it would be the cheesiest opening to an anticipated TV show season ever. In the hands of lesser people, it would have been. It should have been. But when you’re talking about Sunday’s incredible season four premiere of Mad Men, you’re talking about the best TV minds in the business somehow turning the pratfall of a hokey, obvious opening into a revealing process of inner thought. The truth is, no one knows who Don Draper is. He’s led so many different lives — literally and figuratively — that question throws him so far off his game he can’t concentrate. That question clouds his judgement for a week of the show’s time, until finally he fixes his wrong by puffing out his chest and blasting the Gospel of Don so loud that every one can hear it. And just like that, we’re stuck behind another veil of Don Draper secrecy that we may not ever see our way past. It’s like Paul from Beautiful Girls telling Willie, ”You never let them see the little old man behind the curtain working the levers of the great and powerful OZ.” On the other hand, we now know exactly who Betty’s new husband Henry is. He didn’t get enough screen time last year to get a good read on him, he was more window dressing or a means to an end than he was a character. He was there just to get Betty away from Don and nothing else. Sure, he was self-assured and confident in his wooing of a married woman, but he never deviated from what any other wooing has ever looked like in TV and movies. But now we know. That self-assured, almost cocky thing he had going on? That was an act. He’s really a sniveling little mama’s boy without financial means to buy his own house despite a seemingly high-profile government job. He’s perfectly content to “live in someone else’s dirt,” perhaps the most eloquently beautiful words of Sunday’s incredible premiere episode. Now that we know who he is, it’s back to trying to figure out Don. But why bother trying? They’re never going to let us know, and that’s probably a good thing. It’s fun trying to figure out on our own. GRADE: A

ok, so maybe there is a reason to go to comic con

Time for Comic-Con! For the next five days, you will be deluged with news from movies and TV that come out of the celebrity panels, and don’t think for a second any of it off-book or accidental. Every bit of news, however big or small, will all be carefully crafted by dozens of publicists and PR flacks hoping to get a little extra publicity for whatever they’re pumping. There will be no casting decision is too small, no sequel announcement too trite, no trailer unveiling too minuscule to appear in BOLD CAPS on Collider or wherever with what might look like big news — but it might just be an announcement with Jim Parsons confirming he’ll leave Big Bang Theory in 2020. Since I’m off Friday, we’ll take a step back, let you find the news in other ways, and come back Monday with the news from Comic-Con that actually is big.

Luckily, this has never happened to me, where someone came to me and strong-armed me to give up a source. Wanna know why? Because I’ve never used an anonymous source! It only leads to trouble. In fact, I even had the opportunity to use one in a story I wrote Saturday, an anonymous source that would have completely cleared up a complicated story I was writing where I was receiving no cooperation and was under severe time limits, but decided not to. It’s just lazy. Some people — people I love as writers and completely respect as journalists — routinely use anonymous sources, and in their specific line of work, maybe it’s necessary. But it always makes me cringe when a baseball writer like Jayson Stark — my favorite baseball writer, just to clarify — says something like, “One American League GM said …” That kind of journalism doesn’t fly around here. It’s only when you’ve exhausted every other source you have, when that anonymous source can be completely and 100 percent trusted beyond all doubt (not reasonable doubt, mind you, but all doubt) and your only other option is to put a gun to your head and consider pulling the trigger because you’re so frustrated that a great story is going to get blown out of the water. I have no idea whether this Jon Lovitz look-a-like guy ever called Sumner Redstone’s people to find out if the source was telling the truth or not, but if he didn’t, then he should be ashamed. Then he should be fired from whatever this Daily Beast website is. Sure enough, there is no mention in the original article of any Redstone representatives refusing comment. Redstone, from all accounts, is a cold-hearted businessman who might just be getting cold-cocked square in the teeth by a double-fisted dose of karma. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve good journalism. Looks like we hit a sore spot! I’m taking two giant steps down from my soapbox now.

keep 'em comin' sweets, i got a long drive.

Actually, I’m getting back up, just for a second. My wife and I had an extended discussion yesterday about the Bill Murray interview in GQ, about whether he’s a good guy or not. First off — I’m a huge Bill Murray fan, both his work and his philosophies. He’s the star of at least five movies that have embodied my definition of comedy at one time or another (Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Kingpin and Rushmore). His transformation into a respected dramatic actor — robbed of an Oscar for Lost in Translation — is nothing short of remarkable. But in that interview, he came off as the condescending bully from college who’s too smart and cool for everything. He’s just seems to be too smart for his own good. I know people like this — actually, I’m sure I am that person sometimes — and they’re just annoying. Other than that, he completely lost me talking about how great Kung Fu Hustle was. Maybe I just didn’t get the joke, but I didn’t think it was any kind of comedy masterpiece. Had some laughs, yeah, but nothing that makes me think no other comedy can ever reach that level. Weird. At the same time, I feel like a hypocrite because it’s completely refreshing to hear a Hollywood person be so open and honest with the “I could give two s—, this is how I feel” attitude in an interview. It’s what I’ve begged people to do, and it’s the attitude I’d hope any Hollywood person would have if they were ever talking to me (fat chance). So I’m torn. Feel free to read it and fill up the comments on the subject. But first watch this and try and come up with five better comedic actors of the last 30 years. You can’t do it.

There are very few true “maverick” directors out there any more. The days of directors who completely played outside the studio system and made whatever movie they wanted to, refused to take notes from the bosses and basically told everyone in their way to eff off are over. Young directors beat the bushes with their first independent film, then they immediately look for the big paycheck. Who can blame them? It’s why they got into the business in the first place. But the mavericks are still out there, and leading the way is probably Todd Solondz. Not because he’s doing things like walking around Los Angeles flipping people off and telling them exactly where they can stick their iPhones, but because he makes uncomfortable, provocative movies that could never, ever be studio movies. Think American Beauty turned upside down on crack while coming down from a heroin high. Tearing through the Solondz filmography in a day or two would probably drive a person to suicide contemplation, so it’s not recommended. But if you’re looking to experience the inner workings of one of the weirdest movie minds still somehow allowed in the industry, then Solondz is your guy. Just know this isn’t a recommendation, because I would never tell anyone I didn’t know to watch his movies. It’s only a suggestion to movie fans if you’re not familiar with his work.

can there even be another like him? not counting the last indiana jones, that is

On the other hand, there are still directors within the studio system making brilliant movies. They’re just tough to find when you’re sifting through the rubble of the Michael Bay clones that pop up quicker than cockroaches. They’re all chasing that Dawson dream, of becoming The Next Spielberg, the guy whose movies can make $300 million and still get Oscar nominations. Even though James Cameron may have usurped Spielberg as the most profitable, technologically gifted and critically loved director of this age, Spielberg still is the gold standard by which every director is judged. There’s only one guy out there right now who can lay claim to TNS title, and that’s Christopher Nolan. The guy just makes incredible all-around movies that make a ton of money. He’s got his own franchise (Batman), is godfather to another (Superman) and still has time to make the kinds of movies he finds interesting. If anyone is going to be TNS, it’s Nolan.  

Must have missed this a couple weeks ago, but ABC is going just as bland as Fox and NBC with its fall premiere dates, employing a standard “premiere week” type format. The only difference is bringing out No Ordinary Family a week later to make room for a two-night Dancing with the Stars premiere the week before. Great idea! Give Glee fans an extra week to completely tune out of your show. Nice. CBS still hasn’t announced its fall premiere dates, but I’m not sure people would know what the difference is between a repeat and a new episode of CSI.

Fans of low-rated, niche programming on HBO rejoice! Bored to Death and Eastbound and Down come back to HBO Sept. 26. I wish I felt a stronger need to get Kenny Powers back into my life, but I don’t. He’s been gone for too long. While we’re at it, the second half of the first season of Caprica comes back in January. It got lost in my OnDemand schedule after about the fourth episode or so, and I don’t regret it for a second.

You won’t have to deal with me just talking for 15 minutes — I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. There already are some people around here at the Pocono Record who are going to pitch in with what I think are some pretty funny ideas. I’ve been wrong before about this kind of stuff, but it’s material that appeals to my sense of humor. So if you like this blog at all, you’ll probably find the material in the podcast at least moderately amusing.

It’s too soon yet to know if it will be a monthly, weekly or, heck, even daily thing. And the way I work, who knows if it will ever see the light of day. I just know we’ve had some reader requests to do one and PR Web guru John Misinco and I have been talking about putting one together for a while. Yesterday we came up with a framework we think can work, and I just wanted to keep readers updates.

It’s completely a work in progress right now, so I’ll welcome any ideas any readers might have or think they would like to see or hear. Just send ‘em in through one of the 11 million ways to contact me, like Facebook or Twitter.

Also, the PopRox blogging schedule has been completely effed lately, sorry about that. It should be back closer to the Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule starting next week, but I can’t even guarantee that. One thing for sure is there will be no blog Friday, I’m off.

On to the links:

if these two are the future of hollywood, it's gonna be a boring future

It could be that one of the reasons Knight and Day may have failed this summer is because people are just tired of seeing Tom Cruise and/or Cameron Diaz. With Nicolas Cage’s recent track record– including the predictable flop of Sorcerer’s Apprentice last weekend — we can start saying that about him too. It’s the obvious progression into a new generation of actors, a generation where the A-list is going to look about 75 percent different in 2015 than it looks now. But who’s going to be on that list five years from now? It’s a very exclusive list of actors who can guarantee a $100 million movie just because their name is above the title. Leonardo DiCaprio is on it now and will be five years from now. Will Smith probably will be too, but he’ll be on the downside of his career. So who’s there waiting in young Hollywood to grab those spots on that A-list? Anyone? Someone please tell me it’s not going to be someone like Zac Efron. Or Shia LaBeouf. Who’s out there, anyone? Bueller? It was a pretty discouraging list at this year’s Young Hollywood Awards in April — but I have a better idea of who the next big stars are than I do about what the Young Hollywood Awards are.

Robert Downey Jr. probably is going to be 50 in 2015, but his future is solidified with Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man. Book him. Ryan Reynolds is an easy choice since he’s got two potential blockbuster superhero franchises on his slate, has showed he can do comedy, and has the blessing and backing of Hollywood to become the Next Big Thing.

After that and in the 20-something crowd? Good luck. Jake Gyllenhaal would have been a lock five years ago after Brokeback, but he’s had five box office disappointments in a row since then. Andrew Garfield now has instant name recognition as the next Spider-Man, but that’s the only kind of recognition he’s got since only about 10 people have seen his other movies. Jesse Eisenberg might be a pretty good actor (he is) but there’s a better chance of Mel Gibson getting a spot in the Next Big Action Franchise than Eisenberg. If he’s lucky, he might get to lead a Scorsese movie or something, but that’s just about it. Same for Michael Cera, who already has talked about retiring. That’s right, people are actually taking their names out of the running in this race.

a much better bet than anyone else for the A-list five years from now

The only sure thing might be Scarlett Johansson taking over the Julia Roberts-Sandra Bullock-Reese Witherspoon mantle of highest-paid actress. She’s only 26 — which made her just an astounding 19 when she made Lost in Translation — she’s got instant name recognition, she’s smoking hot, men andwomen like her (a huuuuuge key) and she’s already nailed comedy, drama and action. Plus, she’s married to Reynolds, which makes them the next in the line of Cruise-Kidman and Pitt-Jolie. So you can almost guarantee she’ll be on the list.

Other than that? Your guess is as good as mine, or any studio executive’s for that matter. They’re all scratching their heads the same way we are. People are interested in franchises now more than they are actors. Look at this list of the top grossing movies of this year so far. In the top 20, there are two non-franchise/major adaptation movies carried by members of young Hollywood — Channing Tatum and Allentown’s own Amanda Seyfried in Dear John and Miley Cyrus in Last Song. Seyfried also turns up at #32 in Letters to Juliet. That is not a list I’m excited about at all. AT ALL. Yeah, I saw GI Joe, so Tatum actually does the opposite of excite me. I think we’ve just nailed down the first topic to talk about in Popcast.

And this is why Leonardo DiCaprio is on the A-list — because he could turn a mind-bending movie about dream intrusion that probably wouldn’t get made without his name on the project into a $62.1 million hit. The fact that the weekend estimate Monday was almost $2 million lower than the actual gross means more people than expected went to see the movie on Sunday. The word is out, and it’s because of DiCaprio. Hands down, he’s your #1 box office draw right now.

Two big TV premieres this weekend. Well, they’re big in the PopRox world, but seeing as Mad Men turns off 90 percent of the American population and Being Human on BBC America can only be seen by about a quarter of the country, they’re not exactly mark-the-calendar material for most people. But that’s why you’re reading! You’re not most people and you care about good TV. Supernatural cult hit Being Human kicks off first on BBC America at 10 p.m. Saturday. We got just six episodes last summer, but that was enough to vault it to the top of the TV sci-fi genre. The story of a vampire, werewolf and ghost isn’t perfect — especially the ghost portions — but it’s got a very good escapist quality that brings you into the universal theme of wanting to belong to society. Last season is on BBC America’s OnDemand right now, and it’s a pretty easy watch if you can get the chance to burn through them this week to catch up if you need to. Then you can come back and check out the first seven minutes of this week’s season 2 premiere episode right here:

When it comes to Mad Men, by this point, Sunday’s season 4 premiere shouldn’t need the hard sell. I’m perfectly comfortable knowing there are two types of people in the world — those that get Mad Men, and those that don’t. Those of us who do can plead with those of you who don’t about why it’s the best show on TV, but we’d just be wasting our breath. One side isn’t better than the other, they’re just … different. I fully understand why some people don’t, won’t and never will get the show. It’s slow, it’s a little too real and it doesn’t have much to offer on a weekly basis in terms of payoff. If you’re looking for the big payoff, it could be three or four episodes away, and some people just don’t have that kind of time or attention span. And if you missed the first three seasons, forget it. You’ll be lost with no chance of catching up unless you plow through the DVDs. For those of us who are fans, I consider us lucky to be in on one of the smartest shows that’s ever been aired. We invest in these characters like none other on TV, hoping Don Draper finally will turn his life around and the new version of Sterling-Cooper comes to life. If you are a fan, you might wanna take a trip into New York City on Sunday for a premiere party and costume contest. How does anyone even win one of those? Everybody is going to be dressed the same way int he slick 60s businessman/woman style. I’d suggest wearing a radiation suit or something to try and win.

no longer DOA

People looking for their favorite canceled shows to get rescued now have another alternative to cling to hope with — DirecTV. After the satellite company picked up the thought-to-be-canceled Friday Night Lights to keep it on the air for three extra seasons of pure Dillon delight, now DirecTV is picking up FX’s former critical darling Damagesfor two more seasons of 10 episodes each. The important part of that news is that both Glenn Glose as Patty Hewes and Rose Byrne as Ellen Parsons are both signed and on board for the new seasons. Since those are the only two people that didn’t die last season, that’s probably all they’ll need before they assemble a new cast. As long as we get something that resembles season 3 Damages (solid B+) and less of season 2 (easy C-), then it will be worth bringing it back from the almost dead. The fact that there only will be 10 episodes per season has to help. No TV show of the last few years had so much extraneous material than Damages, cutting the useless parts out can’t do anything but help. As for DirecTV, it’s quickly becoming the place where semi-popular, critically acclaimed TV shows go to die. That’s good and bad news for the company, since they’re going to get letters from every yahoo on the planet hoping it will save their favorite show, no matter how stupid the request is. The good news is they’ll be getting those requests and people might think it would be a good idea to get DirecTV just in case they decide to save whatever low-rated show needs saving this season.

Right to the links:

what? me? the next hulk?

So much for Marvel not keeping Hulk on The Avengers roster. Looks like Mark Ruffalo could take over for Edward Norton in the 2012 movie, and then who knows after that if he’ll get his own shot at a stand-alone Hulk movie. The good part of this is Ruffalo is a great actor who probably won’t have any trouble adapting to the pains it takes to play Hulk and Bruce Banner. Hulk and Superman and the two most demanding comic book characters to play in movies because their alter egos are so completely different, and it takes a special kind of actor to be able to do both. Ruffalo has the chops to pull it off. But it comes with a warning — Ruffalo has never really carried a studio movie. He’s definitely known as an indie darling, and he still hasn’t done anything as good as You Can Count on Me in 2000. He’s been the token man/boyfriend in three vehicles for major studio actresses (Reese Witherspoon in Just Like Heaven, Jennifer Aniston in Rumor Has It and Jennifer Garner in 13 Going on 30), he’s had fair stake in some pretty significant box office disappointments (All the King’s Men, Zodiac) and even the indies he’s done lately haven’t come through (Blindness, Reservation Road, Brothers Bloom). Whether any of that is his fault or not is unclear since he hasn’t been given the chance to carry any of these movies. Maybe that’s the good part of Avengers — it’s kinda like his tryout. We’ll just find out in the movie whether he can play the part before any new Hulk movies come around. Sort of like Ryan Reynolds in Wolverine. We briefly saw he could handle Deadpool, so he gets a shot at his own Deadpool movie.

doesn't matter how much the first one sucked, apparently

Nicolas Cage didn’t need a tryout since he’s the one who originally came up with the idea for making a Ghost Rider movie. Apparently it doesn’t matter how crappy it was, he’s on for the second one. Don’t expect the next one to have a $120 million budget like the first one though. Studios hope to make about 33 percent of a movie’s total box office take in the first weekend, anything more disproportionate is a sign the movie doesn’t have much shelf life. Ghost Rider was close to 40 percent, a sign that fans showed up the first weekend and then told other fans not to bother. With good reason, too, since the movie sucked out loud. In this day of making comic book movies and sequels faster than the theaters can hold them, the fact that it took more than three years to make a sequel happen is pretty telling that the studio really didn’t want that much to do with Ghost Rider. Cage probably had to settle for less money, and the budget must have been slashed. At least comic franchise killer Mark Steven Johnson won’t be around to eff this one up. But is adding the directors to Crank a good thing?

meh.

I don’t know. Maybe this was why I wondered if Green Lantern can work as a movie, because Ryan Reynolds just looks like a complete dork in this outfit. COMPLETE DORK. And if Reynolds can’t make it look good, then you’re left scratching your head for who could make it right. Maybe it will look cooler when we see it in the context of the movie, but I’m kinda turned off by the whole thing. Red, white and blue (Superman, Spider-Man), just red (Iron Man) or pimpin’ black (Batman) is the way to go, or it just doesn’t seem to work. The people behind X-Men knew this, and dumped Wolverine’s somewhat effeminate yellow and blue garb for straight black.

Let’s keep the comic book movie craziness going! It was a rumor earlier this week, now it looks official that Kevin Bacon will play some kind of villain in X-Men: First Class. It supposedly starts shooting in a couple weeks, but I’ll believe it when I see it, the same way I’ll believe the June 3, 2011 release date when I see it. I just don’t see how it can happen. Signing Bacon is going the cheap route, I can’t imagine how many people turned this down before it finally got to him. A couple of weeks ago he was probably hoping Tremors 7 got made or something, now he’s back in the blockbuster game. It’s a crazy world.

I don’t think the box office bomb is dead at all, thanks to stinkfests like Jonah Hex. Yeah, it’s way easier to see them coming a mile away now, but I can see the Yankees winning the World Series coming a mile away. That doesn’t mean I’m not interested to see if it happens or not. But it’s certainly different now to see how Hollywood defines them. There’s just so many different ways to make money now that there’s less risk in every movie. TV deals are bigger because every cable station shows movies it pays a lot of money to air. When The Weather Channel starts showing movies, you know everyone is showing them. DVD sales are down, but that doesn’t mean they don’t make money. They just make less money than the reedunkulous fortune they did a couple years ago. I certainly don’t go in to any movie hoping it’s going to suck and flop like the suckage that was Cutthroat Island, but it still fascinates me when it does.

learn this guy's face -- it's the face of the guy who may be the best director on the planet

Inception doesn’t have the whiff of a box office bomb anyway. Even if people can’t understand it, they’re at least going to give it — and Leonardo DiCaprio — a big look this weekend. The estimates are in the $50 million range for the weekend, and that sounds about right. Anything else, and we know that they’re coming because they trust Christopher Nolan. And why shouldn’t we? You can put the guy’s filmograhy up against anyone in Hollywood right now. Everything he’s done for the last 10 years since Memento has been a critical success and he’s got the second-highest-grossing movie ever under his belt. If you’re an actor or writer in Hollywood right now, you want to be in this guy’s next movie — whatever it is. Oh, and one more bit of comic book news from Nolan’s world. The next Batman may start shooting in April. Or it may not. So that’s not really news. But just mentioning Batman 3 gets people excited, so there ya go.

If any TV network needs to shake things up, it’s NBC. So of course … it didn’t. The network that seems like it could literally go out of business at any moment because its ratings are so pitiful is going with a stale, run-of-the-mill premiere week just like Fox is — and doing it the same week Fox is too. So instead of going early to get its major new premieres like The Event or Law and Order: Los Angeles some extra publicity and give them a jump on some other new shows, it’s fine hanging back, going all same-old-same-old and making us choose between NBC shows and everything else on the dial. Why am I not a TV programmer?!?!?! Would it kill them to premiere The Event the week after Labor Day with a two-hour special to get people excited enough to stay away from Lonestar on Fox? There isn’t much else I’m looking forward to on its schedule, so it deserves what it gets.

At least some people still know how to do it. FX has kept its traditional premiere date for Sons of Anarchy — that Tuesday after Labor Day. That gives it the necessary jump it needs to make sure people remember it exists before they switch into network mode later in the month. Not that you can forget if you watch anything on FX, the network has been running the promos since March. Same goes for Always Sunny, this is the premiere date its fans have known for years, so don’t go screwing up a good thing. Should be an interesting year for Sunny. It’s been on for 58 episodes, about the time a comedy either starts running out of ideas or just getting stale altogether. Last year was a complete peak creatively — much like The Office’s season 3 (after about 55 episodes). And we all know what happened to the Office after that. If Sunny stays funny this year, then there is no reason to think it won’t stay funny for however long it stays on the air. Only having 13 episodes a year kinda blows, but if it keeps the show fresh and funny, it’s tough to argue with the formula.

egotistical douche? misunderstood artist? both?

It’s confirmed now what we pretty much already knew — Edward Norton won’t be playing the Hulk in The Avengers movie. Both sides are saying talks were in progress for Norton to return to the Hulk role that fizzled as a movie in 2008, but it sounds like smokescreen. Norton and Marvel famously warred over the final cut of the Hulk movie — a version Norton himself wrote — and it nearly torpedoed the movie with Norton refusing to do most publicity for it. As it turned out, no amount of promotion would have helped as the movie underperformed, not even domestically making back its $150 million budget. It was the second failure of Hulk after the 2003 version barely resembled the Hulk legend. So even before you get to the Norton-Marvel relationship, Marvel already had to be sour on its Hulk relationship. At this point, it wouldn’t be surprising for a second if Marvel decided to rewrite its own history and form a movie Avengers team that doesn’t even include the Hulk. It would be one less hero in an already convoluted cast of characters, one less ego to try and fit in screen time for and one less paycheck to write. For his part, Norton is saying all the right things. The impression we’ve been given over the past couple of years is that he’s a huge fan of Hulk, and all the fighting and posturing he did on the movie set was the preserve the character’s integrity. That sounds all good, until you put it together with other Norton blow-ups and realize he may just be a jerk. Bottom line is, Marvel is finally rid of Norton, and the Hulk’s future in any upcoming movies — including The Avengers — has to be considered doubtful at this point.

relegated to ondemand viewing, if at all

When the heck did Tuesdays become the place to be for summer TV? Last night was jam packed with most of the summer’s biggest series on cable: Rescue Me and Louis on FX, White Collar and Covert Affairs on USA, Deadliest Catch on Discovery, Warehouse 13 on SyFy, HawthoRNe and Memphis Beat on TNT, Life on the D List on Bravo, Pretty Little Liars on ABC Family and The Hills series finale on MTV. All of a sudden, Tuesdays look like a sweeps week Thursday night. That doesn’t even count America’s Got Talent. Tonight? There’s barely any new scripted shows on, except for the season premiere of Psych on USA, Meet the Browns on TBS and Hot in Cleveland on TV Land. Which put together, have about as much buzz as a dead bee. I’ll never understand TV programming. Can’t we please space that stuff out over the week? At least USA immediately puts their stuff OnDemand. FX and TNT wait about a week.

Somewhere, Matt Stone and Trey Parker are either chuckling wildly under their breath, nodding at each other quietly in agreement, or just flat out telling everyone they see walking down the street, “See! We told you Mel Gibson is daffy!” The guy is a raging lunatic. He can’t get Lethal Weapon 5 off the ground soon enough. At this point it wouldn’t surprise anyone if video showed up of him in his underwear dressed in Braveheart warpaint driving a bus into Colorado chasing down a couple of kids for the $20 they stole from him. The happiest person in this whole mess is Tom Cruise, who is now looking downright sane for jumping on Oprah’s couch. Or maybe not …

For some reason, I’m fascinated with how Mission: Impossible IV is playing out, and how much of it hinges on what Knight and Day does around the world after it tanked in America. Sooner or later, Tom Cruise was goingto lose out on the franchise, letting a younger star step in and take over the Ethan Hunt role he made iconic. Hmmm. Iconic? Let’s go with “semi-famous.” Then Cruise would sit back, get a producer credit and watch the money roll in. I just didn’t think that time would be happening now. That seems to be an option for Paramount though, which has been trying to repair its broken relationship with Cruise. Apparently, after the lackluster performance of Knight and Day, the studio really doesn’t care if it repairs the relationship or not.

Here’s the easiest question you’ll ever be asked — what happens when an animated movie almost doubles its studio projections on its opening weekend? No other answer is acceptable other than “they make a sequel.” So look for Despicable Me 2 in about three years. There’s that guaranteed paycheck Steve Carell will be needing once he leaves The Office.

gotta make that money back that madoff stole from him somehow

If Kevin Bacon really is going to sign up for X-Men: First Class, then it’s about time he gets it done so this thing can start shooting. I still can’t believe they’re going to make a release date of next June unless they want the movie to look and feel like poop. None of the villains people are talking about have much name recognition either, I feel worse and worse about this movie by the day.

No matter how you get your in-home movies — Blockbuster, OnDemand, iTunes, Redbox — we all owe a great deal to Netflix and what it’s done to expand the playing field. Before Netflix, it was Blockbuster or pretty much nothing. It’s exciting to know that the company is trying even more avenues to make movie-watching easier because the success of Netflix has allowed the other companies to realize the multitude of chinks in Blockbuster’s armor and exploit those weaknesses, making it easier and cheaper for all of us to watch DVDs. It’s revolutionized the industry so much that we’re about 20 years from Blockbuster being officially archaic and movie theaters closing down because people want to watch movies on their own time. Dealing with the hassle of going to a movie, where you stand a 50/50 chance of someone disturbing you somehow? By 2030, you won’t have to worry about it because every movie is going to be available for you on your TV or computer or phone. Netflix was just the beginning, but it gave Hollywood the blueprint for how the movie-viewing public wants their entertainment. We want it now, and we want it on our own terms. First it took down Blockbuster — next Netflix could be taking down movie theaters.

Fox was always my favorite fall network because it premiered some of its biggest new hows early in the fall season. It was like getting a free preview of the shows that were coming on before they got swallowed up in the mess of a new season of shows that fill your DVR and make new shows problematic to watch. It’s how I got into Prison Break, because it premiered in August. Wait, so maybe it’s not a good thing? Glee also started early last year. Even though I already was committed to it, it was nice to get to watch the first couple episodes without having to worry about watching something else. Anyway, that’s not happening this year for whatever reason. Fox is going the traditional route of just rollingout a “premiere week” type thing, just like ABC and NBC routinely do. Boring. I like the encore airings of shows late night Saturdays, it gives people like me an extra chance to DVR it then since I may have been DVR-ing something else during its first showing. Works out perfect too because I want to watch Lone Star, but I think it was losing out to The Event on Mondays at 9. Judge for yourself. First The Event …

… and now Lone Star …

That reminds me, I never did my fall TV viewing schedule. Maybe next week.

I just got five pairs of tickets to the Poconos’ Wurst Festival at Shawnee Mountain, good for EITHER July 17 or 18 (not a two-day pass). Let’s make this easy — just e-mail me with your name, age, residence and daytime contact info and you’re entered.

You can get a good idea of the weekend and what’s in store if you go:

The usual PopRox contest rules apply: 

--One entry per person, per e-mail address.

--If you message PopRox on Facebook or Twitter, your entry counts twice.

--Deadline to enter is Wednesday at 10 a.m. I’ll be drawing shortly thereafter.

--You have to be able to come down to the Pocono Record to get them sometime between Wednesday and next Friday.

--It’s been long enough that I don’t care if you’ve won PopRox contest before, anyone can enter.

--Please know that you can go if you enter. I don’t want to deal with calling someone only to hear them say, “Oh, I forgot my sister’s friend’s cousin’s wedding is that day!” Believe me, it’s happened.

Other than that, we’re going with a super-sized PopRox today, so buckle up.

take a look at the only person able to sell out a show at musikfest so far this year.

Good story in the Wall Street Journal this morning about the decline of the concert industry. This has been coming for years, it’s just coming to a head this summer, and with good reason. When we went through the local summer concert slate back in May, it was pretty obvious this wasn’t going to be a good summer concert season because there just wasn’t much to get excited about. We’ve already been affected by some of the cancellations because of a random ”illness” — Kings of Leon canceled at Montage for a vocal cord issue, but at least the band rescheduled. I’m not surprised at all that The Eagles aren’t selling. How many times can we see them before we don’t give a flying fudge anymore? It’s not like they have this religious cult following like U2, Springsteen, Dave Matthews or The Dead that makes people follow them around. I have no idea how much of The Eagles’ tour was supposed to be over by now, but there is only one tour date available on LiveNation.com. In October. In Louisville. The concert industry is getting to be no different than the record business — not everyone can do it. It takes a certain kind of band/artist to draw interest in today’s market, and most bands just can’t do it. It will be interesting to see how Musikfest fares next month in light of all this. Right now, the only sold out show they have is … Selena Gomez. So there’s that.

Wow. Just … wow. At this point, I couldn’t be more pumped up for Inception if it was preceded by Tiffani-Amber Thiessen’s porn debut. I don’t know how my expectations could possibly be met at this point, with reviewers — well-credentialed reviewers, no less — basically saying sliced bread doesn’t have anything on Inception. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Chris Nolan has paid off the entire movie-reviewing industry. The worst part is I don’t see an open weekend in my schedule until the end of August — which means I’ll probably be having the same reaction when it comes out on DVD in mid-December. Now is the time I usually punch myself in the head for getting old. It’s always a good time watching the trailer, probably the best one of the summer:

Don’t be crazy enough to think a new James Bond movie won’t be made within the next five years. There’s a better chance of Kyle Chandler getting an Emmy nomination for Friday Night Lights … huh. Gotta stop using that one. Anyway, there will be a new James Bond coming at some point — it’s just probably going to look a lot different than the planned one would have when it hit theaters next year but now has been canceled officially. Sam Mendes probably won’t be around to direct, the story will be changed and who even knows if Daniel Craig will even still be around. Even though supposedly they’re still attached. Mendes is probably out of his contract already, and Craig probably has a clause to get out of the character if the franchise ever changed studios. Someone will come along and rescue the James Bond franchise and make another one by 2015, guaranteed. It just might not be as cool as this one was shaping up to be.

Halfway through the movie year already? Yeesh. I haven’t seen one thing I’d classify as a sure-fire, no-doubt entrant into my top 20 for the year (Shutter Island hasn’t been in my local Blockbuster for going on three weeks now). So yeah, so far, this movie year blows chunks. Usually by now there are about five wide-release movies you can classify as “very good.” That just hasn’t happened this year. At all. There have been some promising indies, but even those are really few and far between and aren’t exactly making anyone run to the Pocono Community Theater. I don’t look at anything on that list and say, “Crap, I wish I could have gotten to the theater to see that.” Here’s to hoping for a better second half of 2010.

the line between denis leary and tommy gavin gets thinner every week

Of all the people in TV, one of the hardest people for me to separate character from real life is Denis Leary as Tommy Gavin. If I ever met Denis Leary, I envision asking him how Colleen is, whether his marriage with Janet is working and asking him why he hasn’t punched Sheila square between the eyes by now. Then he would proceed to punch me square between the eyes. So when it comes to him doing interviews about Rescue Me, it’s hard not to envision Tommy Gavin talking. It’s a good thing, it means he’s invested in the character and it’s a perfect match for him. As for the show, I think ending it around the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 is 100 percent right. For better or worse, Sept. 11 been such a humongous part of the show that it should play a role in how the show ends. Whether it’s being stuffed down our throats when we had just started to get over it, or whether it’s been subtly, tastefully alluded to without us even realizing it, 9/11 is a character in Rescue Me. It’s hard to see it any other way.

Remember in Good Will Hunting when Minnie Driver’s dog won at the track? And Will tried to talk to her a little bit, but she couldn’t concentrate until she finally said, “I’m still glowing from my win!” That’s how I felt all day whenever I thought about Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton getting acting Emmy nominations for their parts on Friday Night Lights. I’m still glowing. I have nothing to do with the show. They’ve never given me a dime. My life wouldn’t change one bit if Friday Night Lights disappeared tomorrow. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel a remarkable amount of pride when a show I’ve been watching from the jump, a show that has toiled in relative obscurity and been supported by small, rabid fan base, finally gets at least a portion of the recognition it deserves. Congrats.

Is it just me or has there been a weird amount of press coming out this week on The Social Network? First, the second trailer debuted Thursday. Then we heard about Trent Reznor writing the soundtrack. Now there’s another newsworthy event — the movie is going to open the New York Film Festival on Sept. 24. That would put it in an interesting position, opening the film festival on the same day that Wall Street 2 opens around the country. Has there ever been a battle for Way of Life in cinema before? It’s the perfect contrast of the 80s versus the present day, since the 80s decade is officially trying to take over the world and all. Even weirder, it’s being brought to us by two 90s holdovers, director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin (whether he’s being repped by Andrew Klein or not).

Even I’m not ready to go this far, dissecting the newest cast photo of Mad Men to try and see if there are any plot secrets being accidentally let out. C’mon people. We’re about two weeks away from the season 4 premiere now. We can wait to find out something as silly as “Why is Ken in the cast picture?” especially when it’s probably something as simple as the show keeping an eye on what’s going on at what’s left of Sterling-Cooper.

You might think it’s too early to start wondering whether X-Men: First Class is doomed or not. Not ’round these parts it isn’t — and it sure seems like there is trouble on the way. They’ve got less than 11 months to write, cast, film and edit one of the biggest pieces of the 20th Century Fox universe. The cast announced this week isn’t exactly awe-inspiring. Not only is it time to start worrying, but it’s almost time to start panicking like in Airplane 2! when the passengers found out they were out of coffee.

I’ve been heavily invested in some DVD catch-up the last couple weeks, including Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to do one long column about everything I’ve been catching up, but it’s just too late for that. So I’ll just say I was somewhat disappointed in Holmes. This wasn’t the guy I grew up reading, for sure. I spent 65 percent of the movie whispering to remind myself over and over, “It’s a re-imaging, not an adaptation … it’s a re-imaging, not an adaptation.” Plus, I could have cut a good half-hour from it and no one would have known the difference. I’m happy the British didn’t pitch a fit about an American playing Holmes, but I kinda wish it was a different American. As great as Robert Downey Jr. has been over the last three years, this wasn’t one to hang on the fridge.

I was pretty hard on Glee and the end of its first season in June for using songs that “belonged” to other movies or TV shows. Then I started thinking: How are they supposed to know what songs are off limits? First off, here’s the definition of belong — songs that are so strongly associated with other movies already that you can’t possibly watch them anywhere else and not think of the first movie/TV show that used it. So I’m working on the first PopRox project, “100 Songs that Have Been Used Already, So Don’t Use Them Again.” Instead of just bitch and moan about it, I decided to come up with a list so that when Glee comes back on next year and uses Leavin’ on a Jet Plane — almost a guarantee when someone goes to college -- I can say, “No, no, no, you can’t use it because Ben Whofleck already did it in Armageddon.”

And I’ll come up with 99 more. I’ve got about 70 right now. Feel free to e-mail me with the link or leave it in the comments if you have a suggestion.

On two conditions:

1. It can’t be an original soundtrack song. We’re talking about previously recorded songs that show up in a movie. Like, OMD’s If You Leave from Pretty in Pink doesn’t qualify. But Ducky crooning Try a Little Tenderness does. Another John Hughes example — Don’t You Forget About Me by Simple Minds doesn’t qualify because it was recorded specifically for the Breakfast Club soundtrack. But the group’s whistling rendition of the Colonel Boogey March is. Original soundtrack songs already belong to that movie, that’s understood.

2. We’re dealing only in movies. I would have loved to have gone through a vast array of TV episodes, wrestling entrance songs and commercials, but I just don’t have the time for that. No one should ever use Nights on Broadway by the Bee Gees again after Saturday Night Live parodied it for the theme to the Barry Gibb Talk Show.

But I just don’t have the wherewithal to go through every TV episode and find songs that can’t be used again. Let’s just say all previously recorded TV theme songs — like C’mon, C’mon by the Von Bondies …

… and Superhero by Jane’s Addiction …

-- are off the table.

Like I said, I’ve got about 70 already, a list that includes the big ones already (Tiny Dancer, Bohemian Rhapsody, etc.). It’s best to send me ones that you think I might be missing. If you manage to send me one I haven’t thought of, I’ll make sure to credit you when I run down the list. I might be able to find a prize for what I think is the best submission, too.

Also wanna thank everyone that showed up for the second PopRox chat on Friday. Those of you there know I got a little overwhelmed by all the comments, but it was one of the most successful chats we’ve had here at the Record. So thanks a ton.

Because of all the comments, I thought when I was going through it the chat was a mess. But when I went back and read it, it actually wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was. In fact, some of it even made sense. Not all of it, but a good portion of it.

Before we do the next one — scheduled for Friday, Aug. 6 at noon and the first Friday of every month — we’re gonna be setting some ground rules so people know what they’re getting into. The first rule will be “Thou shall not have every comment posted.” I guess I wasn’t clear enough on that, and I apologize. When the date gets closer, I’ll give you a better idea of how the chat works so you can understand how the comments get posted into the chat, and what I expect from posters, but the long and the short of it is not every comment gets posted. So there.

Just a reminder — PopRox is on a Tuesday-Thursday-Friday schedule this week. Thursday morning is Emmy nominations.

On to the links:

no shock -- twilight makes a bazillion bucks

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Eclipse. Made a zillion dollars, yeah, yeah, yeah. We knew that was coming, though it’s off from the New Moon first-weekend take so far. Actually, I think it has more long-term potential than New Moon did, especially since New Moon basically fell off the map after it’s first weekend. Its box office take dropped a ridiculous 70 percent in its second weekend back in November — the second-biggest drop in history for any movie that grossed more than $80 million overall. Eclipse has far less competition this weekend (Despicable Me and Predators, neither of which break into the Twilight crowd) and with school out, teen girls have far more flexibility to see it a couple more times. Eclipse is on its way to making $300 million here, easy, and $550 million around the world.

The big surprise is the huge opening for The Last Airbender. I was becoming more and more convinced it would completely tank against Twilight and against the weigh of atrocious reviews. Although M. Night Shyamalan probably shouldn’t be judged by reviews anymore since there are movie reviewers, I’m sure, who still hold a grudge for his portrayal of the movie reviewer in Lady in the Water.

The Mad Men media onslaught is starting. AMC is showing Monday fan-picked episodes before the July 25 season 4 premiere, you can Mad Men your Facebook or Twitter avatar like you could last year, and now you can actually put yourself into a Mad Men scene with Don, Peggy, Joan, Bets or whoever. Not sure whether they can put you in bed with Maggie Siff or anything, I’ll have to look into that.

Nice list of the top TV shows of the year so far, especially since it makes me look good since I have most of the same picks. Me and Ken Tucker are on some kind of weird wavelength, especially with his pimp of Community, a show I’ve been saying for months was the most improved show of the year.

As long as I’m plugging EW, I usually hate its Web lists because they take forever to load and they’re all photo galleries designed to pad website hits. But I’ve been meaning to do this list myself for a while now — shows that need to be on DVD and still aren’t. I understand some shows are just too expensive to put on DVD because of music rights, which explains why the very good China Beach isn’t. But there shouldn’t be any issues with a bunch of these others. EW got a bunch of my favorites that I can’t understand why they aren’t on DVD, and I would probably buy:

Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place: Weirdly just brought up in the Sadowski Household last night watching an old episode of Always Sunny because Richard Ruccolo, who played Pete on Two Guys, showed as a corporate bar owner. One of the most underrated sitcoms of the 90s, I never watched it first-run, but loved it in syndication. You just had a feeling Ryan Reynolds was going to be a star.

Just the 10 of Us: Horribly weak at times, hysterical at others, I’d buy season 3 on the strength of one episode, Risky Business, where J.R. and Sherry sell fundraising candy for an inflated price. It’s one of my favorite half-hours of TV ever, partly because of the show’s new version of the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the fudgemakers.” If that’s not enough, than for one of the most underrated TV theme songs ever:

Wonder Years: No way this ever makes it to DVD for the same reason China Beach didn’t, because of the expensive music rights. You see, when artists sold their souls to these TV shows to use their music, they only gave permission for right to play it on TV, and not on DVD. Now they need to be paid all over again for the DVD rights because no one ever thought a medium like DVD would be around, and it’s crazy expensive to pay for those rights. It’s why when Beavis and Butthead went to DVD, it only included the cartoon portion, and not the best part, the video chatter. With a music-heavy show like Wonder Years, it’s almost impossible to pay for the entire catalog, and the demand probably isn’t there to justify such an expense. But the fact that one of the best shows of my childhood isn’t on DVD is unacceptable. If nothing else, it should be available so I can spit at the screen every time Winnie Cooper appears to screw with Kevin’s life. If it ever comes to DVD, Joe Cocker will be a rich man. Actually, the Michael Jackson estate probably will be holding on to the Beatles catalog rights.

LA Law: Can you imagine ER not being on DVD? Well before ER, there was LA Law. They may have been the same show, actually, just in different settings. Too bad Harry Hamlin couldn’t capitalize on it the way George Clooney did. A four-time best drama winner, LA Law had no problem dealing with tough issues like sexual harassment, AIDS and gay rights, even though back the TV shows tried to stay vanilla and not take a stand on any issue. Another great theme song:

an acceptable reason to watch sisters, in my book

Sisters: I’m pretty aware of my patheticness for falling for this show, so don’t bother trying to reinforce it. I never watched it first-run, but somehow got caught up in it when Lifetime ran it in syndication. I’d deny it for a while with lines like, “Well, there was nothing else on at 11 in the morning” but I was hooked. Two things you should probably know about the show before you dismiss it — it was the first major jobs of Paul Rudd and Ashley Judd and re-introduced the world to Clooney. This was his last stop before hitting ER. Just sayin’. Plus, I had a thing for Sela Ward.

Some more not mentioned:

The Drew Carey Show: It’s first season was released, but nothing else. That was back in 2007. So it’s pretty safe to say it didn’t do so well and the rest of the show is on hold. there is good reasons why it didn’t sell, the first season wasn’t very good and that was still when it was running like 24 hours a day in various forms of syndication. It felt like even the Discovery Channel had this show on for three hours a day. Maybe there’s more hope for it now, at least the second, third and fourth seasons, Porbably lots of music issues with this one too, just the Full Monty episode would probably cost a good chunk of change:

Phenom: I’m well aware it’s never making it to DVD at this point because I’m the only one screaming about it and is probably the only person that even remembers it. But I’m holding out hope that somewhere along the way Judith Light gets famous again for some weird reason and whoever owns the rights for the show tries to cash in.

You Can’t Do That on Television: Apparently there are rights issues at play, but I’d be on Amazon pre-ordering this if it ever was released. A major part of my childhood TV landscape. Maybe to go along with the next Alanis Morrissette album.

Out All Night: If a show that starred before-they-were big Morris Chestnut, Vivica A. Fox and Duane Martin isn’t out yet, it’s not coming out. Too bad, because Martin as Vidal is one of the best TV characters of all time that you’ve never heard of.

The big news of today is that those Hollywood types are pretty sneaky.

not exactly what i had in mind

The team behind the new Spider-Man franchise announced Andrew Garfield will be the new Spider-Man, coming to a theater near you exactly two years from tomorrow. I know almost nothing about him, only that I considered watching the Red Riding triologyOnDemand earlier this year, and that it’s on my Blockbuster queue.

There is one more thing I know about him — he’s British. Unequivocally, unarguably British. We all know it. He’s got a British accent, he lives there, and he probably loves soccer, has no taste in food and has bad teeth. That makes him British. For some reason, it almost seems like someone was going out of their way to find a British guy since Jamie Bell had previously been a front-runner. I just didn’t want to see a British guy as one of the clearly iconic American characters, and I’ve compared it to the sh!tstorm British people would rain down upon us if Matt Damon would be cast as the next James Bond.

But as British as he is — and he IS British — there is a loophole since he was born in LA. So now we can’t bitch and moan about a British guy playing Peter Parker. Technically, he’s American.

Well played, Hollywood. Well played.

Bring your thoughts on the new Spider-Man to the live chat today at noon! I’ll turn the chat on earlier if you want to get questions in, but I probably won’t start answering them til around noon.

See you then!