This week’s show is about the “Cloud Atlas” casting controversy.

If you’re of age and in the U.S., please go vote today.

Did you have a good Halloween? I had a good Halloween. Go see “Wreck-It Ralph.”

Also! I interviewed The RZA. That was surreal.

So, since it’s Halloween… lets talk about this red band trailer for “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters,”  which looks about as agood as these “stupid on purpose” genre riffs get. Specifically… is it at all “weird” that I find this in somewhat bad taste?

What I mean is… I totally “get” that they’re just riffing on the familiar fairytale (LOVE the gag with the milk bottles) and that 0.00000% of this is meant to be taken seriously, but… they MUST be aware that “Witch” isn’t strictly a fictional, made-up thing like vampires or zombies or whatnot, right? That there’s an actual, recognized religion (several of them, in fact) in the 21st Century world that calls it’s practice “Witchcraft” and it’s adherents “Witches,” right? I mean, this cannot be NEWS to anyone making a big-budget American fantasy/horror movie, yes?

I know it’s kind of a weird area, since Wicca etc. names itself AFTER the historical/mythic version of Witches/Witchcraft and not the other way around, but still… the whole jokey “the only good witch is a dead witch” thing kinda rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I’m oversensitive to this, having known and been friends with more than a few real Witches in my time, but it seems kind of weird to not be qualifying them as “evil witches” here, fairytale or not.

I dunno, maybe I’m nuts… but this feels, to me, just a little bit like having “The Wandering Jew” show up as a monster in something and saying it’s okay because it was an actual 13th Century legend. I don’t know that it’s a huge deal (any Wiccans and/or Witchcraft-identifying neo-pagans want to chime in?) but it feels odd in the 21st Century – regardless of context, can you see someone making a movie called “Christian Hunter” or “Muslim Hunter?”

And then everything changed.

On the other hand… Disney has been bringing some incredible talent and material under their umbrella lately. People forget this, but the whole reason they bought Marvel was because their attempts to build in-house “boy brands” (their words, not mine) were coming up short and they figured it was easier/cheaper to just BUY a whole bunch. Now they’ve bought another bunch: Mickey Mouse is now in the business of making movies about The Incredible Hulk and Darth Vader – the future of YOUR popular culture is MY toybox circa 1985.

While I’ll always respect Lucas’ go-it-alone zeal in claiming/owning his creations (and I can’t not worry that there might be something “gone wrong” on his end that’s driving this)… the fact is, he just hasn’t been the best steward of them for a long time. If his final act as owner of “Star Wars” is to leave it, effectively, in John Lasseter et al’s hands? I’m more than okay with that. Especially since this means it’s now in the hands of people with no Earthly reason to NOT release the uncut original trilogy.

Okay. I’m onboard. Let’s see where this is going.

Schlocktober 2012 comes to a close.

You asked for it, you got it. Thoughts and prayers to my fellow hurricane-weatherers.

Brentalfloss and Pat The NES Punk, raising the fucking bar:

See it. Love it or hate it, it’s going to be one of the most important movies of the year.

Intermission: “Let’s Watch ‘The Iron Man 3’ Trailer”

BREAKING: Arnold Schwarzenegger will play “Conan The Barbarian” one more time.

Honestly? If he can get into the best possible shape and they play it as “old Conan” either way, this makes a lot more sense than another “Terminator.” I just hope they don’t make the mistake of assuming that forgoing a PG-13 was what “went wrong” with last year’s awful attempt at a reboot…

Bryan Singer’s original two “X-Men” movies (you know, the ones that still technically happened) are both very solid examples of their genre… for their time. The costumes are almost universally awful, the aesthetic is inappropriately drab and sterile, everyone looks a little too much like models up on the catwalk at a superhero-themed fashion show, but there’s some great performances and both films have good screenplays that “get” the material and most of the characters. Made before Raimi’s “Spider-Man,” “Batman Begins” and especially “The Avengers;” they were imperfect but as good as you could hope for at the time.

“X-Men: First Class” was a better movie on every concievable level – the best version of X-Men outside of the comics and, to be frank, probably better than most of the comics at this point. It finally seemed like Fox had figured out how to handle these properties. Now word is coming down that Matthew Vaughn has opted not to direct the already in-development sequel, “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” and that original helmer Bryan Singer might be stepping in to replace him.

Uh-oh…

I’m not necessarily anti-Singer, and he’s going to need a big hit if “Jack The Giant Slayer” is as disasterous as it’s been reputed to be, but this sounds like trouble. And no, not only because I don’t trust him not to regress the series’ aesthetically back to the dour, dreariness he took it to in the first place. “Past” was reputed to be a time-travel story set up to iron-out the continuity issues between the orignals and “Class,” possibly establishing a new present-day status-quo rooted more in “Class’s” sensibilities.

Meanwhile, the second attempt at a solo “Wolverine” movie is now being described as taking place after the events of “X-Men 3” and not totally junking “Origins” like everyone thought it was. That’s unsettling, since “Origins” was pretty solidly deleted by “First Class” as well.

All of this comes on the heels of Fox hiring comic scribe Mark Millar (whose comics occasionally make good movies once someone else completely rewrites them) to “manage” their mini-universe of Marvel properties, another development that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.