Day: August 4, 2011

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’

I’m a big comic book movie fan. Hell, I’m a comic book fan. I’ll readily admit that I’m a sucker for the character that does good acts just because (as an only child for a fairly long time, and with no children living near me, and going to school that was in another town, comics were one of many forms of media that helped shape my childhood).

To tell the truth, though, I almost thought I was comic-book-superhero-movie’d out. I thought the genre had hit a wall. I thought the spandex onslaught that has been distinguished by Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the X-Men flicks had of late filled that particular cup to overflowing with sputtering also-rans. It doesn’t help that the most recent one, Green Lantern, really stunk.

Apparently not.

There’s nothing like crisp movie making execution — a spirited mix of action, sci-fi fantasy, humor, nostalgia, and romance — to blast through one’s enough-already reservations and been-there-done-that fatigue. That’s exactly what Captain America: The First Avenger does. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’

The very finest in Halloween costume technology

A pair of enterprising brothers from New Jersey have … wait for it … launched a line of saggy jeans that clip to specialty boxer shorts. The mooks got the idea from their kids, who had difficulty playing sports and other antiquities from the 1990s before the invention of belts and the Xbox.

How can a mere elastic band hold up the weight of several swaths of denim, you ask? The Davenports are way ahead of you, assuring their juggalo customer base that their elastic was tested on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Author’s Note:
I was ordered to write this story because I’m the oldest writer on staff.

Turns out you CAN put a price on former glory

Pictured: The real man behind the lawsuit.A class action lawsuit filed by former college athletes against the NCAA and Electronic Arts (EA), the former evil empire of video games, focuses on the potential unlawful use of athletes’ likenesses without their consent. The case, filed by former Nebraska and Arizona State quarterback Sam Keller and former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon, is now a couple of years old, but the judge has already said that if rights were violated, EA could be paying big damages.

How big? Try a quarter of EA’s annual revenue, or approximately $1 billion. The geniuses at USA Today did some fancy math, but to boil it down, it comes out to the law saying that the players can get $1,000 a likeness. Add up all the players (3,630), games, and then triple it thanks to a statute that says that it can be trebled if the violation was “knowing, willful or intentional,” and you’ve got about $1 billion that EA could have to shell out.

EA has argued that it has a First Amendment right to use the players likenesses. They just might need all of the amendments and then some.

Worse than a bear: A drunken bear

In what could be another sign of Eastern Europe’s softening in the War Against Sobriety, the Ukraine is putting the boot down on forcing bears to drink vodka.

Apparently, they have so much of the stuff over there that they cage bears and make them do shots at local bars. The Guys are appalled at this practice. Buying your sworn enemy a drink, sometimes several drinks? That, friends, is called giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

We could say it’s time to bomb the Ukraine, but in light of their government’s crack-down on animal drinking, and the fact that it’s pretty bombed-out as it is, we’re going to let it slide.