1951-2011

Of all the love and support and memories so many of my family and friends have so sincerely shared with me since my beautiful mother’s passing yesterday, these words from the lovely card my cousin Kelly gave me will stay at the top of my heart forever:

“Johnny, your mom is an angel — she always was.”

First Photo: Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES!

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I love it. It’s Selina Kyle through and through. Serious but sexy, without the slightest hints of silliness or sleaze.

And it’s also very telling that they put her on a Batpod, isn’t it?

Selina and Batman have always had such a hot, forbidden relationship in the comics, and there’s something really intimate about seeing her on one of his vehicles.

Because maybe she stole it.

And maybe she didn’t.

Either way, Hathaway looks fantastic. I love the high zipper, which reminds me a lot of the new look created for Catwoman in 2002 by writer Ed Brubaker and artist Darwyn Cooke.

(There’s a really great breakdown over at DC Women Kicking Ass.)

More secrets reside at the movie’s official site!

First Photo: Henry Cavill as Superman in MAN OF STEEL!

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This is AWESOME. I love the handsome mix of modern materials with the old-school “S” on the chest.

Majestic, yet formidable.

Retro, yet space-age.

And Cavill looks the part; he’s always been able to play equal parts regal and rugged.

I know it’s just a publicity photo, but this looks like he was just thrown into a vault, and now he’s getting up to punch somebody. Zod? Faora? It doesn’t matter. Because they’re in trouble.

Outstanding.

Here’s the Warner Bros. press release accompanying the photo:

Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures have provided the first look at the new “Man of Steel,” revealing star Henry Cavill as Superman in the film from director Zack Snyder. The film also stars three-time Oscar® nominee Amy Adams (“The Fighter”) as Daily Planet journalist Lois Lane, and Oscar® nominee Laurence Fishburne (“What’s Love Got to Do with It”) as her editor-in-chief, Perry White. Starring as Clark Kent’s adoptive parents, Martha and Jonathan Kent, are Oscar® nominee Diane Lane (“Unfaithful”) and Academy Award® winner Kevin Costner (“Dances with Wolves”).

Squaring off against the superhero are two other surviving Kryptonians, the villainous General Zod, played by Oscar® nominee Michael Shannon (“Revolutionary Road”), and Faora, Zod’s evil partner, played by Antje Traue. Also from Superman’s native Krypton are Lara Lor-Van, Superman’s mother, played by Julia Ormond, and Superman’s father, Jor-El, portrayed by Academy Award® winner Russell Crowe (“Gladiator”).

Rounding out the cast are Harry Lennix as U.S. military man General Swanwick, as well as Christopher Meloni as Colonel Hardy.

“Man of Steel” is being produced by Charles Roven, Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan and Deborah Snyder. The screenplay was written by David S. Goyer, from a story by Goyer and Nolan, based upon Superman characters created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster and published by DC Comics. Thomas Tull and Lloyd Phillips are serving as executive producers.

I feel like I’ve been waiting for this forever.

Laurence Fishburne is Perry White in MAN OF STEEL!

The only actor I could think of for Daily Planet editor Perry White in the upcoming Superman movie Man of Steel was Clancy Brown; Perry was the only character I didn’t have at least a few good casting ideas for.

But, as has become the standard for casting on this film, director Zack Snyder and producer Christopher Nolan are doing just fine on their own.

Entertainment Weekly exclusively reports that Laurence Fishburne, who has made an incredible career playing characters from affable Cowboy Curtis on Pee-wee’s Playhouse to hard-as-nails mentor Morpheus in the The Matrix, has been cast as the big boss at Metropolis’s best newspaper. And I love this. I can just imagine a younger Fishburne as a younger, hungrier Perry, and how awesome he’ll be at reflecting Perry’s love for old-school journalism against the changing face of the newspaper industry and the decline of print media.

And then, of course, Superman will show up and change everything.

Fishburne joins Henry Cavill as Clark Kent and Superman, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon and Antje Traue as Kryptonian villains General Zod and Faora, Diane Lane and Kevin Costner as Clark’s adoptive Earth parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, Russell Crowe and Julia Ormond as Clark’s Kryptonian birth parents, Jor-El and Lara, and Christopher Meloni and Harry Lennix as American military generals.

No word yet on whether we’ll get a Lex Luthor. (I suggest Luke Goss, but nobody asked me.)

Man of Steel will believe in Truth, Justice, the American Way, and YOU on June 14, 2013!

I can’t stop listening …

… to this new Bangles song, “I Will Never Be Through with You,” from their upcoming album, Sweetheart of the Sun (which is an amazing title, by the way), produced by the reigning Merlin of power-pop, Matthew Sweet. (This sounds like it would have been right at home on Sweet’s Altered Beast album.)

Hear it here. The album is out September 13!

(Thanks to Whitney Matheson for the tip.)

And in case you need a Matthew Sweet refresher, Continue reading