Unmaking Links

The Making and Unmaking of Iggy Azalea. This is a really interesting article on the rise and fall(?) of old Igloo Australia. It's funny because after reading the article it's hard to say that she didn't work hard for her success, but you could definitely make the argument that even with all that work she didn't really "earn" it. It'll be interesting to see if she ends up a flash in the pan or if her career can recover from some very strong criticism.

Hydra And Red Skull Cosplay Banned By Rose City Comic Con. I've seen these Hello Kitty Nazis at ECCC before. I guess they were at RCCC somewhere, also there was another group just dressed up as SS troopers that somehow I missed. I'm pretty fine with the ban. Portland has a bit of an issue with Neo-Nazis so even ignoring the current political climate I can see how they would want to address this in this way. Frankly with all the nut jobs out there and mass shootings going on I get a bit uncomfortable anytime I see cosplayers in realistic military gear. I'm cool with fake weapons and like Halo combat armor but some of these guys that want to dress up like characters from COD are just a bit unnerving. I guess that's a weird hair to split but I'm totally splitting it.

Fan Films to Watch Right Now. I've seen the Punisher short film listed here and it's definitely legit, really makes me wish Thomas Jane had gotten one more chance at Frank Castle. The Power Rangers one is a bit less engaging, it's too over the top and in love with its own concept. Still if you have a few minutes to burn it worth checking out this list, there's some other good ones on here.

GHOST IN THE SHELL - Official Trailer #1

Ghost in the Shell is a pretty popular Anime movie from the 90s that I own but can't remember anything about. The main character is a girl who is a machine and a cop and she can turn invisible. I believe she also hacks into computers, that's about all I remember. Oh wait, I do remember everything takes place in Tokyo and everyone was Japanese.

With that in mind, here's you new Hollywood live action remake staring Scarlett Johansson and a lot of other white people. I guess in the Future all the white people leave the US and go to Tokyo. Thanks Obama. I have two hot takes regarding this trainer:

First off I don't think this doesn't look visually stunning enough to separate it from every other sci-fi action flick. When she strips down and she's just all robot it doesn't look cool or sexy it just looks weird. Serious uncanny valley thing going on there. Unless this movie gets some really great buzz or a second way cooler trailer this thing is DOA.

Secondly, good. These racists jerks deserve what's coming to them. It would be one thing if they had decided to set the film in New York and completely appropriate the plot of the film into a western setting but just sticking a bunch of white people in Japan and having them all be the leads while it looks like the bad guys are still Japanese is hot garbage and the studio should be ashamed. They won't be because you know, you have to have a big star attached and I'm sure they only cast people right for the part, race has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

This is the reason people wanted Iron Fist to be Asian.

Hollywood Links

5 Things I Learned Making The Biggest Flop In Game History. Everyone's heard this story, right? ET was the game so bad that it bankrupted Atari and nearly killed the entire home console market. Well, that's not quite the truth. Yeah the game isn't that great but the truth is Atari was a company so poorly run it was destined to fail. ET was actually a huge hit for them, they sold over a million and a half copies of the game but in their infinite wisdom they had printed over 5 million copies. A mistake they repeated when they printed over 12 million copies of Pac-Man completely ignoring the fact that they had only sold 10 million consoles. Long story short here is that Atari was run by coked up morons.

Rob Schneider And Jennifer Love Hewitt Are Officially The ‘Worst’ Actor And Actress In Hollywood. Clearly the people that put this study together never saw The Client List. Man that was a great show.

Another Day, Another White Guy at Marvel: Benedict Cumberbatch to play Dr. Strange. This is an old article but it relates to the mixed reaction the Doctor Strange trailer got last week. First things first, I have zero problems with Dr. Strange being played by a white guy. Yes the character might have originally been Asian (as a few interviews with the creator have suggested) but outside of those early issues 50 years ago he's never been identified as anything other than a plain old white dude. However, I do agree with the articles overall point. Marvel is quite literally going to have 8 movies staring blond white guys named Chris (3 Thor, 3 Cap, 2 GOTG) before one movie staring either a woman or a person of color. Throw all the white guys named Robert in there and you have 11 movies before they get around to the Black Panther or Ms Marvel (which was delayed again).

I could go on for a couple more paragraphs on the Might Whitey trope but eventually I need to get to work today.

I know this sounds all Social Justice Warriory but I don't care. I looked at my pull list the other day and right now books with a female lead dominate what I'm collecting. Squirrel Girl, Hellcat, Black Widow, Silk, Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Black Canary. I don't know, Marvel is the so called House of Ideas. I'm just looking for a bit more diversity when it comes to their movie ideas.

Shower Links

William Regal Shared A Scary X-Ray And Advice For Young Wrestlers Taking Crazy Bumps. I'll never understand why people want to throw themselves through steel chairs and flaming tables for $25 at the local armory. Don't get me wrong, I understand why someone would want to be a professional wrestler but I don't understand why someone would be willing to take extreme risks all in the name of entertainment. Just Look at William Regal's franken-neck. Maybe take all that time it took to set up your 4 table drop from the rafters and work on your arm drags a bit more.

Silicon Valley writer: The show’s lack of diversity is accurate. I like Silicon Valley but not enough to torrent it like I do Game of Thrones. As such I've only caught the first season because an HBO free preview weekend lined up with a marathon of Season 1. It's a pretty funny show and I assume it's a fairly accurate representation of the real Silicon Valley. Sure I have no real reason to believe that, just like I had no real reason to believe Office Space was a fair representation of life in a cubical when I first saw it. It just feels real. That's a pretty big compliment for a show, right?

Anyway the take away here is that Silicon Valley (the place) is a city full of mostly white dudes. Probably a lot of Trump supporters there.

Indiana Jones Returns in 2019. Yay? I guess? Would it really have killed anyone if they had stopped making Indian Jones movies after The Last Crusade? Harrison Ford is like 107 years old. Sure he's in great shape for a man in his hundreds but didn't he break his ankle while they were filming The Force Awakens? I think Spielberg might be trying to kill him. Maybe he owes him money.

Finally, The Death Star Shower Curtain Of Your Dreams. Man, when did my dreams get so pedestrian? I mean it's a nice shower curtain and all but yikes. I guess it's all downhill from here.

Ghostbusters Trailer

So the trailer for the much talked about Ghostbusters remake hit the interwebs this morning. It looks just fine. Certainly everyone involved with the project is talented enough that it shouldn't be terrible or anything. I've never had an issue with them recasting the entire team with women. In a perfect world it would probably be better if it was half-men half women and there was like an Asian person somewhere. Maybe they could have avoided casting a black actress as the one Ghostbuster who isn't a scientist. Whatever, just make a good movie.

Also I'll bet like 20 dollars that the person responsible for increasing the all the paranormal activity is Bill Murray or Dan Dan Ackroyd.

They're Gathering Again

It's time for the most anticipated infomercial of the year. The annual Gathering of the Juggalos video. This year's video comes to us from the FUTURE. A future where I assume cool things like the ICP and Faygo have been outlawed so it's up to one intrepid group of ninjas to travel back in time to the 2015 Gathering of the Juggalos and I don't know... save the future Faygo? This thing is 20 minutes long I didn't have time to watch it all this morning.

I think I say this every year, but man I really want to go to this thing. Think of how awesome the people (?) watching must be. Sure there's a 50/50 chance I never make it back but Anybody Killa and Nova Rockafeller are going to be there. I'm pretty sure it's worth taking the chance.

Top 15 Greatest Black Superheroes

This video is a big long but I watched the whole thing, so I guess it wasn't so long that I didn't watch it. There's a ringing endorsement. Now random thoughts:

I completely forgot Spawn was a black guy. I mean I remember Spawn is a black guy but I completely forgot about Spawn. Weird huh? He had a movie and everything. It just seems like it's been forever since Spawn has been relevant in anyway. The last time I even remember reading anything Todd McFarlane related was when Neil Gaiman was suing him.

Captain Monica/Photon/Captain Marvel Monica Rambeau should really be on this list. Like near the top. Minority superheroes often get the short end of the stick but female minority heroes get it worse, even in list form. Storm is THE ONLY lady on the list period. That's kinda sucky.

No way Bishop and his jheri-curl mullet should be ranked ahead of Falcon. Even when he was a good guy Bishop kinda sucked and hasn't even been a good guy in like 5 years. He spent 12 issues hunting down Cable through time and space trying to kill a baby. How can you rank him ahead of the guy who's lined up to be the next Captain America?