The Government Draws the Line at Super Heroes.

While on my normal daily search for some sort of intellectual humor, I found this story. Not necessarily humor, but after some brief analysis and common sense, you can get some chucklefucks out of it.

Basically, for those that don't like to click links to read my source material, the Department of Defense liaison to Hollywood pulled the U.S. Military's "involvement" in the new mega-hit movie, "The Avengers".

But wait.....it gets better. According to Phil Strub, the DOD liaison, it was because the DOD couldn't discern who the fictitious, quasi-governmental/global/peacekeeping/military organization S.H.I.E.L.D. answered to.

"We couldn’t reconcile the unreality of this international organization and our place in it,”

So......the Department of Defense pulled support for "The Avengers" because it is UNREALISTIC.

Forget the fact that THE AVENGERS include a frozen, genetically modified soldier from World War II, a gamma-irradiated scientist that turns into a huge green beast, a Norse demigod, and a billionaire playboy philanthropist with a heart condition AND A SUIT OF ARMOR. No....the unreality of this situation is who S.H.I.E.L.D. answers to.

Forget the fact that THE (original) AVENGERS debuted almost 50 YEARS AGO, so the storyline, characters, and organizations in the movie should have come as absolutely no surprise to someone with Google and half a brain.

Here. Let's look at some of the movies Mr. Strub has contributed to, with the DOD's blessing, and I'll be sure to post the synopsis of the films as well......

• Transformers: Dark of the Moon

• Autobots Bumblebee, Ratchet, Ironhide and Sideswipe led by Optimus Prime, are back in action taking on the evil Decepticons, who are eager to avenge their recent defeat. The Autobots and Decepticons become involved in a perilous space race between the United States and Russia, to reach a hidden Cybertronian spacecraft on the moon and learn its secrets, and once again Sam Witwicky has to come to the aid of his robot friends. The new villain Shockwave is on the scene while the Autobots and Decepticons continue to battle it out on Earth

• Battle Los Angeles

• Los Angeles and other cities around the world are being bombarded by meteors that seem to be slowing down once they hit the earth's atmosphere. The earth is suddenly being invaded by space aliens that have landed off the shore of LA, and who begin killing everybody along the beach. The military is ordered into action. Marine Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), who was about to retire, is reassigned to a new platoon. The platoon, flown by chopper to the forward operating base at Santa Monica Airport, is being led by a new 2nd Lt. Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez). They are sent on a mission to rescue some civilians who are trapped at the police station within alien territory. They only have 3 hours to complete their mission and get out before the Air Force bombs that zone.

• War of the Worlds

• Ray Ferrier (Cruise) is a divorced dockworker and less-than-perfect father. When his ex-wife and her new husband drop off his teenage son Robbie and young daughter Rachel for a rare weekend visit, a strange and powerful lightning storm suddenly touches down. What follows is the extraordinary battle for the future of humankind through the eyes of one American family fighting to survive it in this contemporary retelling of H.G. Wells seminal classic sci-fi thriller

• Jurassic Park III

• Dr. Alan Grant is now a happy man with the previous incidents of Jurassic Park now behind him. Grant is that happy that he announce in public, that nothing on Earth can persuade him back onto the islands. Maybe nothing, except Paul Kirby. Kirby and his wife, Amanda want a plane to fly them over Isla Sorna, with Dr. Grant as their guide. But not everything Kirby says is true. When the plane lands, Dr. Grant realizes that there is another reason why they are there, that he doesn't know of. Now, Dr. Grant is stuck on an island he has never been on before, with what was a plane journey now turned into a search party.

All TOTALLY believable films. I mean, I fight off alien invasion every week. I'm glad the DOD makes sure these films are totally realistic, so I know how to fight off the robots and aliens when they come. Oh, but that's not all folks, the real travesty is that the DOD actually DID throw their support fully behind a blockbuster film due out this year.....

Oh, in case you haven't heard, this movie is based on the board game. AND IT HAS FUCKING ALIENS....because, you know, that was in the game.

  Based on the classic Hasbro naval combat game, Battleship is the story of an international fleet of ships who come across an alien armada whilst on a Naval war games exercise. An intense battle ensues over sea, land and air. What do they aliens - known as 'The Regents' - want?

This article has an excerpt of an email sent by the US Navy on their involvement in Battleship.

 Produced by Universal Pictures and directed by Peter Berg, BATTLESHIP was made with the support of the Department of Defense and the Navy.  As you know, we ask ourselves some key questions before supporting a major motion picture. First, does the script accurately portray the Navy?  Second, does it positively represent our service and our Sailors? Third, can we support a film without impacting our operations? And finally, do we believe that it could have a positive impact on recruiting?  In the case of BATTLESHIP, we felt the answer was “Yes” to each of those questions.

Wow. So, recruiting numbers should go up, because fuck yeah, I want to fight aliens, and the women sailors look like Rihanna? Where do I sign?

Ugh.

Official Man's Weekend Announcement

So, in case you haven't heard from your wife, girlfriend, mistress, maid, waitress, or secretary, there's a movie coming out on June 29th called "Magic Mike".



Yeah....a movie with Channing Tatum and Wooderson as male strippers. As my wife said, "The theater will be full of women and gay guys. My kind of people."

I submit to you, dear SooperDoods, that this gives us ample reason to designate June 29-July 1 "MAN'S WEEKEND". Why a full weekend? Well, all the desperate housewives are going to go watch the movie on the 29th, then cluck about it in their playdate groups for the rest of the weekend anyways, so they won't even notice. So find a sitter, most likely will have to be a teenager, or your older son, since your mother will probably be going to see the movie also.......like mine *shiver*.

Now, let's set forth an agenda for said "MAN'S WEEKEND".

June 29th - Dinner and Drinks with the MEN.

A fine gastric and beer sampling experience is the perfect way to offset your wife's film-based hormonal substitute. May I suggest a little place to begin that is near and dear to my heart....The Tilted Kilt?

She's holding three of my favorite things. With only one hand.

June 30 - Movie night at home

After a hard night of looking at half naked women bringing you food and drinks, it may be hard to snap back to reality. Luckily for you, your significant other will still be swooning over the pecs, abs, and oiled up CGI in that shit movie, so it's time for you to view some real cinematic treasures. Take a look at SooperDad's list, and use what you like.

• Showgirls - a wonderful cinematic adventure through the eyes of Jesse Spano as she struggles to become the best in her field. A feel good story about the coming of age of a teen idol.
• Wild Things - a thriller in which Neve Campbell and Denise Richards are thrown into a love triangle that forces them to make out with each other.
• Poison Ivy II - The sequel was better than the original as Alyssa Milano is misjudged as a troubled teen while being proud of her body. A movie about having self-esteem and being proud of your body.

July 1 - Golf

Golf and drinks with the men. Although, the cart girl will have probably had the vapors also, so the cart dude will drink with you.

Enjoy your time, men. There's no telling when another chance like this will come around again.

Netflix.....you sux.

Quiet Sunday at home with my 4, and my 5 nieces and nephews. I decided to check out some movies online that my kids might enjoy.

The week before we saw Avengers on Mother's Day, my family and I watched all the superhero films that were in the movie: Captain America, Thor, Iron Man 1 and 2, but left out the Hulk, because Mark Ruffalo.

The reason we got to see the Avengers on Mother's Day.

Anyways, the kids did really well sitting through all 4 of those movies AND The Avengers, so I tempted fate by trying to increase the streak. I have been having an itch to rewatch the X-Men movies, and finally watch Wolverine's movie. Cue Netflix.

Netflix doesn't have ANY of them. I checked Hulu AND Amazon streaming, and neither do they. WTF?

Here's where we get back to Netflix sucking.

Instead of having any of the original X-Men trilogy, X-Men: First Class, or X-Men Origins: Wolverine, THIS is what greeted me as the "Newest Arrivals"

Go ahead and take all of that awesomeness in for a second........

They don't stream ANY of the 5 X-Men movies......but Honey 2 is "Most Popular" today. The direct-to-DVD movie. The fucking street dancing movie. At least the first one had Jessica Alba in a tight top so guys had something to stare at while the horrible story unfolded.

Oh, and by the way, they recently added Urban Cowboy, because fuck Wolverine, that's why. And what do we have next to Urban Cowboy? Baby Boy, a movie about an unemployed BICYCLE MECHANIC living in Los Angeles. The movie has Tyrese and Snoop Dogg, who, you will be shocked to learn, was not nominated for an Oscar for his performance. Shocking. And next to that......is that 50 Cent? What the hell is 50 Cent doing in a movie? With Ray Liotta and Mario Van Peebles? oh....wait a second. 50 Cent wrote the fucking movie? Ugh.

And let's not forget the Gary Shandling obligitory pile of trash in the upper right hand corner. Mind you, these 5 were the only movies that I picked on. There were more.

Here's where it gets interesting.

Here are the review scores for these movies from RottenTomatoes.com:

Honey 2 - 5% of critics liked the movie, 45% of audience 

Urban Cowboy - a respectable 77% for both critics and audience......but it's still over 30 years old.

Baby Boy - A surprising 71% for critics, 85% for audience....wow. I'm really shocked.

All Things Fall Apart - No critic rating, 49% for audience.

X-Men: First Class - 87% critics, 88% audience

Granted, some of the X-Men movies are lower than Baby Boy, but come on. Then I got to poking around and there are NO superhero movies on Netflix, except for Superman 2 and Iron Man. No Batman, no Spider-Man, no Hulk. 

Get your heads out of your asses Netflix. I know the whole Qwikster thing lost you a ton of cash, as it well should have, but pull some better negotiations for licensing, so we can watch Wolverine instead of Leprechaun 74: Leprechaun in Da Nursing Home.

Epic.

I'm in line on opening day for this one....

I was derping around on the interwebz, when an ad for the new Pixar movie, Brave, caught my eye. Being a proactive parent, I clicked on the link to prepare myself for the barrage of merchandise and promotional items I am no doubt going to be begged to buy.

And then I was shocked.

A female lead. A powerful, dynamic, strong female lead in a movie targeted at children.

I mean sure, there are the Disney "Princesses" (Technically, not all of them are Princesses.....just sayin) but think about it: they are all somewhat dependant on a male counterpart. Hopefully this movie will not follow that pattern and give my girls a true heroine to look up to.

 

The lost Rowling masterpiece....Harry Potter and the Money Grab

The new Harry Potter movie opens tomorrow, and already has sold $25 million in ticket presales for the first showing. This means this film is close to breaking the $30 million midnight box office take from the current record holder, The Twilight Saga:Eclipse. 

A few of my family members have read the books and seen the movies, but my children haven't shown an interest in the books. (To be fair, I haven't read the books OR watched any of the movies) I narrow this lack of interest down to one thing. 

Harry Potter books aren't available on the Kindle. 

My kids LOVE thier Kindles. It was the one of the best gifts they've gotten. However, Mr. J.K. Rowling hasn't allowed Amazon to digitally publish his books.

Wait........what?

Photo:thefastertimes.com

However, she and her publishing company DID just announce a new website, Pottermore, which will have access to ALL the Harry Potter e-books for "every e-book reader available". Great! Except, the Kindle only supports proprietary formats of e-books. 

So, what is Rowling and the publishing company trying to do? My guess is to force Amazon to open Kindle to common e-book formatting, so that Amazon could lose some control over an important asset. 

*sigh* 

What is the attraction to this franchise?

O.....I.....C.

Come to think of it, what is the attraction to the Twilight franchise?

Wait.........I think I'm beginning to see a trend.

And yes, ladies. I HAVE seen the Twilight movies. And read the books. All of them. And I'm completely ashamed of myself.