“Newsweek,” the 79-year-old magazine is stepping into the present by axing their print edition to go fully digital in 2013. Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown announced the shift yesterday (tellingly on the Daily Beast site), and the polarized responses of crushing nostalgia, predictions of ultimate failure and it’s-about-time praise came from all corners of (again tellingly) the internet. Whether it’s a signal of internal trouble or not, it’s where our world is heading, which is why it’s particularly encouraging in this time of transition to look back on some of the “Newsweek” covers of the past to discover that history tends to repeat itself. Someone should package that up and coin a phrase about it. Of course, all of our choices are movie-themed, but as you’ll see from the selections, the ghost of the present seems to haunt the past even in the examination of the popular art. Even without the deep sentiment, it’s still fascinating to let nostalgia well up for the times gone by caught by these covers.

Welcome back to This Week In DVD! I just moved to Arizona a couple days ago, and I have yet to get carded. As always, if you see something you like, click on the image to buy it. Barbarella (Blu-ray) A leftist pinko astronaut named Barbarella (Jane Fonda) is tasked with finding the origin of Duran Duran’s name and rescuing a lost scientist along the way. Neither plan comes to fruition, but she does manage to use her skill at love-making to help the resistance in their struggle against tyranny, teach an angel to fly, and break a musical dildo machine. (Probably worth reminding readers that my ‘Pick of the Week’ isn’t necessarily reserved for excellent movies or even the week’s best releases, but instead it’s meant to highlight a title worth, well, highlighting.) This boob and innuendo-filled, PG-rated, late-sixties romp is ridiculous and ridiculously entertaining. Cheesy, absurd and pretty damn funny.

In which we join forces with other websites to start the campaign for Joan Holloway, sexy mercenary in space…

Movie auteur Robert Rodriguez certainly is a busy boy of late. Robert Rodriguez and fiancée Rose McGowan are at it again. No… I meant movies, not sex. Well, actually maybe a bit of both…

Back in the fall the intern was all abuzz with scandal, intrigue and shenanigans surrounded Grindhouse babe Rose McGowan and Sin City director Robert Rodriguez. And no, I am not talking about all the sexy sleaze that could be found on the pages of Defamer.com, I am referring to the alleged casting of McGowan in the title role of Barbarella.

Who seduces an angel? Who takes sex to outer space? Who’s going to make this thing? The list of Barbarella’s iconic rhetorical questions just added a new one after Universal Pictures announced that it’s dropping the project.