I’ve always loved Nicolas Cage. Moonstruck, Raising Arizona, City of Angels, Adaptation – who doesn’t love those movies? I even forgave him for National Treasure because I liked Matchstick Men so much (although I am a sucker for a con movie). I’ve always admired how he can bring out the humanity of any character. So talented, such range, but lately I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend in his career particularly after watching the newly released Kick-Ass DVD.

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I’m a 34 year old pop culture fanatic. I take my TV very seriously and am a proud couch potato. Don’t get me wrong, I like to get out and explore, but the best part of my day can be watching a quality TV show that rips your heart out (a la Joss Whedon). The biggest fight my husband and I have ever had is over the fact that Direct TV doesn’t have a Tivo (stinkin sub-par DVR). A couple of years ago I started doing an entertainment news-type update for my friends. Basically I just rant and rave about TV (and sometimes movies), but I take pride in the fact that I’ve turned some of my friends on to shows they probably never would have watched before.

You can see teasers for all of the new Fall shows on the corresponding network website. So of course, I watched all of them. Without further ado, we have attached the Fall 2010 schedules for each network color coded as new shows in green, new time slots in red and any titles in bold are shows I’ll be watching.

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Last night after a dinner in Langhorne, PA at Jimmy Buffet’s Cheeseburger in Paradise, which warrants a post about crappy cover bands (a topic I know a thing or two about as PTB and KevinMLD will surely remember from my previous Diary of a Bass Player column from the old Break Even site), my wife and I saw Dinner for Schmucks, the American remake of the French movie The Dinner Game, itself based on the French play, Le Diner de Cons, both written by Francis Veber. Thanks for the info, Wikipedia! You make me look smart! Oh, and for those that don’t speak French, the translated titled apparently DOES mean “Dinner for Idiots”.

Who knew? (French people, probably)

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We’ve had a week to digest the happenings of Brightest Day #6 since it shipped last Wednesday and there’s plenty to say. Our discussion covers green Martians, white Martians, Miss Martians and manhunting Martians along with more on Firestorm, Deadman, and Aquaman.

PTB and I also take moment to touch on the Brightest Day teaser image DC was showing off at this year’s San Diego Comic Con and how much these images usually amount to in the end.

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Closing out our reviews of the new line of Avengers titles in Marvel‘s Heroic Age is Christos Gage and Mike McKone’s Avengers Academy #1. This is title with a bunch of new characters and seems to pick up on some of the concepts introduced in Avengers: The Initiative. We threw in some follow up on the Avengers and Thunderbolts titles as well.

Avengers Academy #1

KevinMLD: I liked this book well enough I guess. I have no investment in any of the characters so that doesn’t bode well for me sticking around, but there was a certain charm to the book. It seems like all of the Classic Avengers except Scarlet Witch and Vision are back in the Heroic Age. Though I liked the oddly villainous Quicksilver from X-Factor a few years back. I hope they don’t reimagine him again… Already.

PTB: I don’t mind the cast they’ve chosen for the instructors here. Hank Pym, Quicksilver, Justice, Speedball and Tigra are Avengers characters that I’ve enjoyed reading about for years, but I am officially done with these Avengers books that introduce teams of new young characters. Marvel seemed concerned with the mutant population boom and used House of M to rein things in. The resulting creation of dozens of new Initiative and Academy characters puts them in the same position. I can’t really name one that I care about.

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