Pop Culture Roundup 34 / The Superslice

Sweetness, Sir Charles, The Dream and The Express. Here’s Pop Culture Roundup 34, Hall of Famers.

We featured Adele‘s title song for Skyfall in the previous PCR, here’s a special edit of the theme song with a montage of clips from the film at the header. In addition, there are a pair of new television spots below.

The second trailer for Tarantino‘s slavery-era revenge film, Django Unchained. At San Diego Comic-Con this year, Vertigo Comics announced that it would publish a five-issue comic book adaptation of Django Unchained. A personal favorite, legendary comic book artist, Jim Lee, is doing the variant cover for the first issue, which is on sale December 5th.

Set in the South two years before the Civil War, Django Unchained stars Academy Award-winner Jamie Foxx as Django, a slave whose brutal history with his former owners lands him face-to-face with German-born bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Academy Award-winner Christoph Waltz). Schultz is on the trail of the murderous Brittle brothers, and only Django can lead him to his bounty. The unorthodox Schultz acquires Django with a promise to free him upon the capture of the Brittles–dead or alive.

Speaking of Quentin Tarantino, Lionsgate and Miramax are releasing the Tarantino XX: 8-Film Collection, a 10-disc Blu-ray box set that features eight movies chosen by the popular director to showcase his first 20 years of filmmaking. Artist Ken Taylor did the stunning and eye-catching box art.

Tarantino XX contains eight films chosen by Tarantino to illustrate the first 20 years of his career, featuring the films that helped define his early success, including Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Death Proof and Inglourious Basterds. To complete the stunning high definition 10-disc set, the Tarantino XX: 8-Film Collection also features two discs with five hours of all-new bonus material, highlighted by a critics’ retrospective on Tarantino’s groundbreaking catalog of films and “20 Years of Filmmaking” that contains interviews with critics, stars and other masters of cinema.

Gangster Squad

Hitchcock, is a love story about one of the most influential filmmakers of the last century, Alfred Hitchcock, and his wife and partner Alma Reville. The film takes place during the making of Hitchcock’s seminal movie Psycho.

Killing Them Softly

Rian Johnson, the director of Looper, has released an in-theater commentary track to entice movie-goers to view the film a second time. It’s quite the fun and clever gimmick.

I recorded a commentary track to be downloaded, put on an ipod and listened to in the theater as you’re watching Looper. This is an odd thing I tried with Bloom, and have gotten a few requests for it again, so here it is. It is totally different from the commentary track that will be on the Blu/DVD, a bit more technical and detailed. Needless to say, this is NOT to be listened to on a first viewing, or before you’ve seen the film. Also, please work it so that a glowing screening is never out of your pocket during the movie. Listen to the introduction before heading to the theater, it has instructions. And lemme know how it works.

The Canyons is a contemporary L.A. noir from director Paul Schrader, writer Bret Easton Ellis, and producer Braxton Pope about the dangers of sexual obsession and ambition, both personally and professionally, among a group of young people in their 20’s and how one chance meeting connected to the past unravels all of their lives, resulting in deceit, paranoia, cruel mind games and ultimately violence.

The Lords of Salem, directed by Rob Zombie, residents of Salem, Massachusetts are visited by a 300-year old coven of witches.

Zero Dark Thirty, the Navy SEAL Team 6 tracks down wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden.

If there wasn’t enough fanboy and critical controversy regarding Prometheus (DVD released on Tuesday, October 9th), there are rumblings of a possible tie-in with Blade Runner. I thoroughly enjoyed Prometheus and have been a staunch apologist but is Ridley Scott “pulling a Lucas” and tarnishing his great sci-fi legacy?