Happy New Year, Fanpeeps. Remember when His Airness came back in ’95 and rocked #45 because they had already retired his number 23? This one goes out to the culture of comebacks. Presenting Pop Culture Roundup 45.

Paramount just released eleven high resolution images from Star Trek Into Darkness. Set your phasers to fun and scope them out below.

 

 

TRAILERS, TEASERS and FEATURETTES

A Good Day to Die Hard (Official Trailer #3)

 

Side Effects (Official Trailer #2)

 

Evil Dead (Full Redband Trailer)

 

The Place Beyond The Pines (Official Trailer) – Luke (Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling) is in constant motion, a high-wire motorcycle stunt performer who travels from town to town with the carnival. Passing through Schenectady in upstate New York, he tries to reconnect with a former lover, Romina (Eva Mendes), only to learn that she has in his absence given birth to their son Jason. Luke resolves to forsake life on the road and to provide for his newfound family, taking a job as car mechanic with Robin (Ben Mendelsohn). Robin soon discovers Luke’s special talents, and proposes to partner with him in a string of spectacular bank robberies. But it is only a matter of time before Luke will run up against the law — which comes in the form of Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper).

Avery is an ambitious rookie cop navigating a local police department ruled by the menacingly corrupt detective Deluca (Ray Liotta). When Avery, just beginning to balance his profession and his family life with wife Jennifer (Rose Byrne) and their infant son AJ, confronts Luke, the full consequences will reverberate into the next generation. It is then that the two sons, Jason (Dane DeHaan) and AJ (Emory Cohen), must face their fateful, shared legacy.

 


Another Ryan Gosling film, the next story by the director of Drive, Nicolas Winding RefnOnly God Forgives.

 

MAMA (Short film with intro from Guillermo del Toro) – The feature film, MAMA, coming to theaters on January 18, 2013, was based on a short film of the same name from Andy and Barbara Muschietti. This exclusive look at the original short film is presented by Guillermo del Toro and includes one of the scariest scenes del Toro has ever seen. The craftsmanship, ingenuity, and horror presented by the Muschiettis made him want to be a Producer for the feature film.

 

Downloaded – A feature documentary about the rise and fall of Napster, directed by Alex Winter for VH1 Rock Docs.

 

 

Here are some enlightening must-read links related to Quentin Tarantino and the success and controversy of Django Unchained.

 

Quentin Tarantino On ‘Prometheus’: Loved It, But ‘A Lot Of Dumb Stuff In It’ (h/t to Kevin O.)

Django Unchained Interviews: Tarantino, Foxx, Waltz, Jackson and Washington

Every Pop Culture Reference from Tarantino Movies

The 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation, inspired Tarantino to make Django Unchained, in a sense. Tarantino utterly despises the film and the director D. W. Griffith. It is a historic and influential film but it is utterly primitive and racist. In QT’s words, Django serves as a huge “fuck you” to D. W. Griffith and the film. I think it’s worth a brief look out of pure curiosity as it is surreal to watch after viewing Django. Watch the three hour silent film in it’s entirety, below, if you desire. It’s odd.


Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious (SE8/EP13)

 

 

TELEROUNDUP


 

Girls: Season 2 (Trailer #2)

 

Bates Motel (A&E Show Trailer)

 

Newsreaders (Adult Swim Trailer) – Your first look at Newseaders, a new series from the creative team that brought you the Emmy Award–winning comedy Childrens Hospital, will premiere on Thursday, January 17th at midnight (ET/PT).

 

AFRICA: Giraffe Battle (Discovery Channel Trailer) – AFRICA premieres Tuesday, January 8, 2013 at 10/9c on Discovery. AFRICA is an awe-inspiring journey four years in the making. Watch as two giraffes engage in a vicious battle for the rights to this prized territory from the ‘Kalahari’ episode.

 

The Mind of a Chef (New Series on PBS) – From ramen to rotting bananas, from Copenhagen to Kentucky, from pork buns to golf clubs The Mind of a Chef is a rethinking of a “food/travel/cooking” show. The premiere season features Chef David Chang.

The series will break down completely the barrier between a chef and their process and dare to make connections between food and nature, science, music, art, sports, history, and pretty much anything else a renowned chef can stir up.

Produced by Zero Point Zero and narrated by Anthony Bourdain, The Mind of a Chef is simultaneously reverential, cocky, daring and inquisitive; never pandering, always informative and entertaining. Through the use of dynamic stories, lush “food porn”, animation and artwork The Mind of a Chef is a unique, fast paced, and forward thinking mash up — where some of the most important ingredients can’t be bought, nor cooked, or for that matter, even fit in the kitchen.

 

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Tout the 70th Annual Golden Globe AwardsSNL/30 Rock‘s Tina Fey and SNL/Parks and Recreation‘s Amy Poehler talk up their latest hosting gig, the 70th Golden Globe Awards, which take place at the Beverly Hilton on January 13, 2013.

 

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2: Find the Nerve – Here is the first official clip from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 to be distributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The clip features Batman facing off against a large contingent of Gotham City police and their leader, new Commissioner Ellen Yindel.

 

A couple months ago, Venice, California’s Blur Studio (we’re huge fans of their work) along with David Fincher launched a Kickstarter campaign to finance a story reel to produce the CG film adaptation of the popular, but still somewhat underground, Eisner Award-winning Dark Horse comic book series, The Goon. Their goal to fund the project was $400,000, they went beyond that goal by almost $42,000.

Why start a Kickstarter campaign when you have the power and bucks of a director of Fincher’s stature in your corner, you ask? Well, not only does it require an extensive budget to produce a CG film of this magnitude but the campaign would possibly demonstrate the level of popularity The Goon, show that it would be a feasible project and hopefully attract some Hollywood executives and movie studios to pick up the project.

The co-directors of The Goon, Tim Miller and Jeff Fowler, were recently spotlighted on Last Call with Carson Daly and Attack of the Show. The movie’s proof-of-concept trailer is also below, along with a message from the comic series creator, Eric Powell, and some recent test footage.

 

 

MASHUPS and SUPERCUTS

Everything Wrong With Prometheus In 4 Minutes Or LessDo Prometheus fans exist? We certainly expect to find out. Here are all the sins we counted in Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus. We had to stretch our time limit to 4 minutes for this one… just too many darn sins. (Regardless of this dude’s gripes, we still love the film!)

 

The Training Montage Montage – Edited by Bryan Menegus from Slacktory. Movies featured: Rocky I, II, III, IV, Bloodsport, Bring It On, Chariots of Fire, Cool Runnings, The Cutting Edge, Footloose, Full Metal Jacket, Highlander, Snake in Eagle’s Shadow, Kill Bill (vol. 2), Mulan, No Retreat No Surrender, Ratatouille, Regular Show (Ep. 4 “Death Punchies”), Run Fatboy Run, Step Up Revolution, Team America: World Police, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, The Incredibles, and X-Men: First Class.

 

Back to the Future Part II x It’s a Wonderful Life

 

Monsters by Eclectic Method

 

The Walking Dead x Skyfall

 


Speaking of Skyfallonce you see it

 


So here’s Alison Brie as Captain America. Defending Merka has never been so hot and noble.

 

 

ODDS and ENDS

 


Xenomorphs x Qi Baishi. Who did this?!!! It’s rad.

 


Robotech Valkyrie Project (Short Trailer – English Subs) – This is also RAD! Why hasn’t there been a live action Robotech movie?!

 

Catching up with George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy about the state of Star Wars. They discuss how they met, passing the Lucasfilm baton, what makes the appeal of Star Wars universal, and the future.

 

Behind the Magic: Marvel’s The Avengers – Anatomy of a Shot – While The Avengers posed many visual effects challenges, one of the larger challenges was pulling together the “tie-in” shot during the third act of the film. Rather than frames, this single shot is measured in minutes on screen and is one of the longest effects shots in the film. It incorporates both practical special effects and extensive digital visual effects by ILM. The New York City environment that serves as the setting for this shot (and virtually the entire alien invasion) is computer generated by the visual effects team at ILM.

 


National Post: The best little horror house in Texas: A graphic history of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise – NP just makes the best pop culture infographics.

 


The Real Bruce Wayne. Here’s a morph of all the tv and movie Waynes; Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney and Christian Bale.

 


Joker Dad and Joker Son? Gaunted Photography created this cool portrait using the impressively detailed 1:6 scale action figures from Hot Toys.

Justin 13 answered with a Bat-version.

 

Here’s Supes doing his thing and flying near PCH.

 

So that’s that. See you on the flip…

@teemunny

Pop Culture Roundup 45 Thread