Raylan will shoot you in the Blu-Ray on January 25!

Check out the scoops here and here for news about the Blu-Ray and DVD releases of the first season of one of my favorite new shows, Justified.

The first link has Sony’s trailer for the release, and the second has the technical specs (though no word yet if the Blu-Ray’s audio is lossless) and a list of special features.

January 25 is the big day. (My dad will be so happy. He asks me about this all the time.)

The second season begins in February; click here for previous Justified coverage!

Guillermo del Toro is attached to ABC’s new Hulk series!

Remember when we talked about the possibilities of Wonder Woman and the Hulk coming back to a television screen near you?

Deadline reports the huge and incredibly good news that Guillermo del Toro (who directed the Hellboy movies my dad and I love so much along with so many other imaginative films) is joining Battlestar Galactica executive producer David Eick as co-creator of the new Incredible Hulk series being developed for ABC.

Del Toro excels at finding the humanity inside of even the most fantastic monstrosity, while Eick’s sensibilities helped guide the Galactica crew through one impossible moral dilemma after another. The Hulk represents a dream-team project for these guys if there ever was one, and I can’t wait to see how it shapes up.

The article bears some early clues:

Unlike the two Hulk movies, in which the monster was a pure CGI creation, the series will employ a mixture of prosthetics, puppetry and CGI. Del Toro and Eick will break the story for the pilot script together, sharing story and created by credit. Eick will write the script, with del Toro attached to direct subject to his availability. Del Toro will also oversee the designing of the Hulk character, which is expected to draw on previous comic book incarnations, as well as the original 1978-82 Incredible Hulk TV series, with a few wild tweaks on the old look.

Given the fact that neither of the big-screen Hulks were flawless examples of CGI, it seems like an awfully tall order to expect a television budget to be able to afford a believable digital Hulk week after week. But just look at the documentaries on the Hellboy II Blu-Ray to find countless examples of Del Toro using practical effects to accomplish creatures that look, move, and feel more real than any computer creation.

(And if they’re looking to hire an actor to play the Hulk, I’d like to suggest the current Mr. Universe, Alexander Nevsky. He has lots of acting and producing experience, and he’s massive, and he’s got the publicity of a big bodybuilding win behind him.)

Del Toro says, “I have always been attracted at the combination of comic book heroics and monsters,” adding that he even wanted to make a Hulk movie in 2002. Ang Lee made it instead, and I’m still trying to forget it. He believes he and Eick have “coalesced a respectful but powerful way of retelling the Banner/Hulk story in a fresh way.”

Eick adds, “I’ve enjoyed the challenging, rewarding process of revisiting beloved characters,” adding that the Hulk is “one of the crown jewels of the Marvel world for generations.”

They’re certainly talking the talk. Now it’s time to walk the walk, and I hope they remember all the things that made the original series so timeless in the first place.

Happy 33rd birthday to Miss Maggie Ruth Gyllenhaal!

I’d have a hard time finding a hotter case of the hots than the hots I’ve got for Maggie Gyllenhaal. Gorgeous and sexy in an old-school Hollywood kind of way (and in any other way, for that matter) and an utterly fearless actress, she’s long been one of my absolute favorite celebrity crushes.

In 2004, when I attended a Q&A session hosted by David Duchovny for his directorial debut House of D in Chicago, Maggie and a group of her friends were walking out of the movie theater just as I was walking in. Her radiance in person is something I will never forget. Part of me still wishes I’d said hi, but I didn’t, because I’m sure she gets bothered all the time.

Anyway, she’s amazing, so here’s to celebrating her talent on her special day. The photos were taken from this gallery.

Stunning.