On Friday, July 27, at the height of Comic-Con hysteria, Warner Home Video commandeered PetCo Park, the beautiful home of the San Diego Padres, to host their release party for Zack Snyder and Frank Miller's 300 on DVD. While I try to avoid the red carpet at all costs (if you've ever worked it, you'll know why), I was somehow shanghaied into working the press line alongside some of LA's finest photographers (see legit papparazzi). It was certainly an education and I was grateful for having been welcomed into their unique little enclave. I also snagged a few nice photos in the process.

We original thought there was only one of these models cum Spartans, but it turns out that the entrance to the party, taking place on the club level concourse of the park, was crawling with them. If the males of our rather out-of-shape pack weren't feeling intimidated enough by Mr. Pectoral Leather Thong, to be surrounded by an entire army made one feel testoterone-challenged... at the very least. Thankfully, the celebrity guests started arriving quickly, so we didn't have time to dwell on our shortcomings.

First up were director Zack Snyder and his wife Deborah, followed closely by Frank Miller.

Next to arrive were Astinos the headless (Tom Wisdom; the dude is 33 and looks like he's 17), followed by Hal Sparks and his girlfriend?! We still don't know why he was there, but everyone was asking ridiculous I Love The '80s questions and he was giving it back as good as he got it.

And then came the parade of cast and crew from recent DVD release... Babylon 5: The Lost Tales stars Bruce Boxlightner, Tracy Scoggins; and Believers director Daniel Myrick...

...The girls from Joel Silver's Return to the House on Haunted Hill...

...and Bladerunner's Joanna Cassidy and Sean Young, with veteran character actor Joel Turkel in the background.

We waited around for almost half an hour being told that David Arquette (Tripper) was on his way, but eventually gave up and went into the party. Many of you have been to major league ballparks and know exactly what to expect. Imagine walking into this park and finding a Spartan den of debauchery and inequity, complete with costumes from the film, harums, and dancing slave girls.

Oh yeah, and then these guys showed up. You may recognize the face of one, but the guy in the skeleton suit is the one who kept us waiting earlier in the evening...

All in all, it was a fascinating evening, if only to experience what life is like as a freelance photographer (those guys hustle their butts off), and partake of the 300 experience in such a unique location.

During the last week of June, we were invited up to Vancouver, British Columbia by SciFi Channel to tour the set of their new series, Flash Gordon and meet with the cast.

Located about 45 min outside the city, the studio is actually an old farm which they've converted over to a production facility. The barn houses all the main sets. The horse stables double for hair and makeup. The acres serves as versatile exteriors. Operating on a shoestring budget, the production team has been forced to get creative, and the results are remarkable. Looking at what the costume designers have come up with is just one example.

The set designers faced similar challenges and created swing pieces that could be used for multiple interior locations, depending on what the script called for.

But, as with most shows, it's the writing and what the cast is able to do with it that will detemine its ultimate success. We had an opportunity to talk with four of the series regulars -- Eric Johnson (Flash), Gina Holden (Dale), Karen Cliche (Baylin), and Jody Racicot (Zarkov) -- about their involvement and experience working on the show. When we arrived, they were in the midst of shooting episodes 6 and 7 of their 24 episode season.

Listen to the Q&A session (57:16)

For those who didn't make it down to Comic-Con this year, we also have access to the cast and crew's panel which took place on Sunday, August 26.

Watch their panel appearance (48:02)

For a sneak peek at the series, SciFi has provided us with a behind the scenes promo, as well as several clips from the pilot episode, which premieres August 10 at 9:00p ET /8:00p CT.

Reunion of Flash and Dale -- Flash's ex, Dale Arden, returns to town as a television reporter, rekindling their friendship. Only problem is, Dale has moved on with her life, her career, and her relationships, while Flash is living at home, working as a grease monkey, and running marathons in his free time.

Flash questions his mom about Dad's work -- The premise of the series is that Flash's father, a physics professor, died in fire 13 years before. But what they come to learn is that he was doing work off the books investigating a rift in the space-time continuum, one which opens directly onto the planet Mongo.

Flash and Dale meet Ming -- Here's the potential deal breaker for me. With legendary actors like and Max Von Sydow breathing life into Alex Raymond's Ming the Merciless, seeing John Ralston in the role is a major disappointment. Granted, this is all based on my own personal expectations for the character, but first impressions are important and he just doesn't seem to cut it.

"Return of a Hero" -- A behind the scenes look into the updated legend of FLASH GORDON: the cast, the characters, the stories, and even the return of the theme song by Queen.

For as much as I love the rich tapestry of the FLASH GORDON universe that has been woven over the years, I'm approaching this series with trepidation. I do give showrunner Peter Hume and his team the benefit of the doubt and hope that they can pull this off, adding yet another campy, costumed jewel into the crown of this scifi fantasy legend.

The Simpsons Movie is out. It may seem like I’m stating the obvious here, but I think it’s worth bringing to people’s attention. Fact is, amidst the marketing blitz and the deafening hype, it’s easy to forget that there’s an actual movie spurring all these corporate sponsors and ardent fans into action. I feel like all the buzz surrounding the Simpsons has somehow turned into a series of debates over the merits of the show, rather than anticipation for the movie. Don't get me wrong, it's great to see the show getting attention and all, but it would be a shame for that to steal the thunder from the movie.

I saw the movie on Saturday, and it's good. It's great, actually. It's a treat for fans and it's accessible to the uninitiated. In addition to that trademark Simpsons wit, there are some truly inspired comedic moments, and the third-act sentimentality actually hits home. Seriously, I was moved. I was surprised at how good it was, but in retrospect, I shouldn't have been. I got sucked into a few of those conversations about how the show really started to go downhill after Season , and it got to the point that I actually started to believe it. The show has always been good, though. There have been highs and lows, certainly, but I wouldn't even call them peaks and valleys. They're more like bumps in the road. Matt Groening & Co. have maintained an amazing level of quality over the years. Most shows are hard-pressed to find anything new to say after a season or two. The Simpsons simply does not have that problem. It's been said before, and it's true: the movie is essentially an extra-long episode of the show. Imagine that critics started saying that about other movies: "it's as good as an episode of the Simpsons." I think box office numbers would go up.

The Simpsons Movie is as good as an episode of the Simpsons. In other words, go see the Simpsons Movie.

I’m not entirely sure what it is that inspired Werner Herzog the retell the story of Naval Pilot Dieter Dengler in Rescue Dawn. It had been told quite effectively in Herzog’s own documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly. Upon further review regarding Dieter’s story, Herzog says on the film’s official site that “Dieter Dengler embodied everything I love about America: courage, perseverance, optimism, self-reliance, frontier spirit, loyalty and joy of life. He was the quintessential immigrant into America – a young man who arrived with a great dream and came to represent the best of the American spirit.”

For those unfamiliar with the basic outlines of the documentary and the man, Dengler (Christian Bale, Batman Begins) was an immigrant who had a boyhood dream of wanting to be a fighter pilot, and he graduated school in Germany and came to America with only thirty cents and the desire to fly. On his first flight in the Vietnam War, conducted in parts of Laos, he is shot down and captured. After some tortuous sequences, he is sent to a POW camp, where he meets Gene (Jeremy Davies, Saving Private Ryan) and Duane (Steve Zahn, Out of Sight). Both have been in camp for at least a year, bearing in mind that the conflict still hadn’t escalated when Dengler had been shot down. While Gene is convinced that there is progress being made towards a release, Duane is more resigned to not being able to leave the camp. Within a short period of time, Dieter manages to craft a lockpicking device out of a nail, so as to give the boys some freedom in the evenings, as they were handcuffed together, their feet held by wooden blocks. Dieter helps plan an escape for the men, which eventually does manage to occur, and they are sprung into the Laotian jungle to try and find friendly rescue forces. For those who scream “spoiler”, you can’t really spoil real life, so nerts to you.

For those who are familiar with the story from the documentary, you might be surprised to see the dark nature of the interactions of those in the camp. Dengler himself told Herzog that these men were almost willing to kill, as tensions frequently ran high. It is the major difference between the documentary and the film, which in the beginning, does state that it’s “inspired” by the events in Dengler’s life. Also, the previous escape attempts that Dengler attempted is ignored, rather, combining those events into one larger attempt is the more logical decision to make. Past those differences, everything remains pretty true to the events.

Many things strike me about this movie, the first being that Batman himself is very daring in the nature of his acting choices. In between The Machinist and his anorexic frame, his bulking up for Batman Begins and to lose it again for Rescue Dawn, he consumes himself into a role and devotes himself to it. He plays a man who has no quarrel with the Vietnamese, he is simply devoted to the country that gave him a chance at his dream. And coming from Hitler’s Germany, he knows what oppression is, and says so when offered the chance to admit to his “war crimes” as a propaganda ploy. And if you think he doesn’t do any heavy lifting, think again. His feet are tied to one end of a rope, the other end securing to a running water buffalo, whereupon Bale is dragged through the dirt while villagers kick and throw things at him. He has an anthill tied to his upper torso, and is dunked in a claustrophobic tank that fills to the neck. He’s doing all the work for this role, and it gives it much more believability than a lot of roles out there, and I haven’t listed everything he did. However in this film, Zahn’s performance is clearly the best. He plays someone who people know very little about, and does it with staggering surrender. When he starts to show signs of hope, it’s touching and heartbreaking at once. His performance is worthy of Oscar recognition next year, anything less would be criminal. He, Bale and especially Davies have lost an extraordinary amount of wait for their roles, it is staggering to see how skeletal they are in the film.

Is it “just another war film”? It’s a film set in Vietnam, for sure, but those who have asked if it’s pro or anti war are missing the point. Above all else, it’s about surviving extreme circumstances. Several scenes show Bale cutting through the jungle with a machete, with Herzog (or his longtime cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger) just over his shoulder. The brush and vines are that strong and that thick, and if it helps show just how hard Dengler had to get back to freedom, then its time well spent. The film is a compelling look at a harrowing experience, and it deserves to be seen by many people (MGM/Sony waited three and a half unexplainable weeks after its limited release, but it averaged over $3,000 a screen on less than 500, so here’s hoping that changes).

A quick sidebar on Dengler. The man truly led a full life, with many close-calls and near-death experiences. He says in the documentary that “death did not want him”, and closer examination shows just how much that was true. When he was found, he lost a third of his weight and was less than 100 pounds; when found and examined on the helicopter, he had a half-eaten snake in his pocket that scared the man who found it so much he almost fell out of the chopper. After his military career he remained a test pilot, surviving four more plane crashes. He had to abandon ship in rough seas when helming a boat. He died from ALS complications in 2001 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery (where most of this biographical information was found).

Score – 95

It's been a crazy couple days here in San Diego, with very little time between sessions to blog. However, here's what is coming your way throughout the week...

* Transcribed interviews with the BLADERUNNER design team
* Audio interview with Ridley Scott
* Audio interview with writer/director Bruce Timm (Superman: Doomsday)
* Recap of "40 Years of Star Trek" panel
* Recap of 300 DVD release party at PetCo Park (home of the San Diego Padres)
* Impressions of NBC's new series The Bionic Woman
* Audio interview with sci-fi/fantasy legends Ray Harryhausen and Ray Bradbury
* Recap of BALLS OF FURY panel
* Recap of Rogue Pictures preview including THE STRANGERS and DOOMSDAY
* Impressions of upcoming Disney film PRINCE CASPIAN
* Audio press conference with the women of Battlestar Galactica -- Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackoff, Tricia Helfer, Lucy Lawless
* Transcribed interview with the original voice of Speed Racer, Peter Fernandez
* Impressions of the new Fox series The Sarah Connor Chronicles
* and a recap of the Smallville: Season Seven preview

Exhaustively yours,
Michael Stailey