Early Buzz: 'The Tick,' 1994, 'Empire Records' and more

Good morning! I hope you had a mighty fun holiday weekend; I'm trying to pretend it's still happening and all this work nonsense is just a dream ...

Let's kick off our four-day week with a few headlines, shall we?

- Syfy has posted an episode of a Web series I'm in about the summer films of 1984.

- Guardians of the Galaxy has become the biggest box office hit of the year.

- See the trailer for the new season of Downton Abbey.

- We have a story about Johnny Winter's posthumous album, which arrives two months after his death.

- Here's a big story about the impact of the movie Empire Records.

- Watch American Masters' full documentary about photographer Dorothea Lange at pbs.org. I highly recommend it.

- Spin counts down the top 100 alternative songs of 1994.

- R.E.M.'s Unplugged appearances are now out on vinyl. (They initially were released on Record Store Day.)

- Jimi Jamison, the lead singer of the band Survivor, has died.

- In this video, we hear the story behind the classic doc Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

- Could the live-action version of The Tick return?

- See a trailer for the new season of Once Upon a Time.

- Watch the trailer for the Dan Harmon doc Harmontown.

- Just a reminder that Party Down is now on Hulu ...

- Cartoonist James Kochalka talks about creativity.

- What happened when Paul F. Tompkins allowed Bob Saget to narrate home movies and be as filthy as he wanted to be? (Obviously, don't watch this at work.)

- Take a very difficult quiz about Saturday Night Live.

- And finally, hear a playlist of music in Haruki Murakami's novels.