During my blogging hiatus, some big nerd news came out. After a lengthy search, Paramount Pictures named actor Chris Evans for the role of Steve Rogers aka Captain America for the upcoming film, Captain America: The First Avenger.
If you remember, I did an entry about who was being considered for the role and my personal pick, Jason Lewis, won out on my poll. But looking at the rumor mills, he wasn’t even in the running. Too bad. Channing Tatum was supposedly one of the finalists and I would have thrown a brick at someone if he got it. A more established actor, John Kransinski from NBC’s The Office, was supposedly in the running and while I love him as an actor, I could never see him as Captain America. All I can imagine is him doing that funny smirk he always does while the Red Skull tries to kill him. And I guess Ryan Phillippe really wanted to do it. I would’ve been okay with that, if only to make his son proud of him.
From reading other blogs, message boards, twitters, facebooks, and other nerd outlets, many seemed to be skeptical about Evans as Capt. The main issue seems to be how he played Johnny Storm in the previous Fantastic Four movies:
I don’t like actors playing multiple characters in the same fictional universe as well. But, seeing as I’ve completely disowned those Fantastic Four movies because of their awfulness, his portrayal of Johnny Storm doesn’t exist…at least in my mind. But…then again, if he wasn’t able to pull off the first role, how can I entrust him with an even bigger role?
Overall, I’m very skeptical. But he’s Captain America now, for better or worse. I hope he can prove us nerds wrong. If he doesn’t…we’ll be calling for the ‘Death of Captain America‘ movie sooner than later.
This Sunday is the unofficial American Holiday: Super Bowl Sunday. For those who watch football, it’s a match up of two of the most dominant teams from this past season. For everyone else, it’s one more excuse to drink beer, eat junk food, watch expensive commercials, and to observe people get way into a football game.
Football-related: On Sunday, we’ll get to witness a clash of the two teams who went undefeated for most of the season. They were both criticized for resting players and going ‘soft’ at the end of the season. However you felt about this at the time, it seems taking that rest didn’t hurt them. Both are led by powerful offensives. For the Colts, the hilarious Peyton Manning (this year’s NFL MVP) heads an offense with weapons all over the field. Though they don’t have much of a running game…it doesn’t matter when you have a QB like Manning. The Saints are led by ex-Charger Drew Brees. Brees had a monster passing year, completing over 70% of his passes (an NFL record) to a deep receiving corps. Their offense also led the league in scoring.
For both teams, the offense is the breadwinner. But their defenses aren’t exactly pushovers. They may not be the Jets or the Ravens, but they make plays when they need to. For the Colts, they benefit from plenty of experience. They’re anchored by one of the most feared pass-rushers in the league, DE Dwight Freeney (who’s questionable for the Super Bowl due to an ankle injury). The Saints also have several veterans on their squad. One of their breakout veterans from the year was a free agent pickup, S Darren Sharper. But overall, the Saints defense comes into the game with more questions, after giving up over 300 passing yards and 150 rushing yards. Though they came up with the plays to win the game, Brett Favre’s untimely turnovers helped the Saints squeak out the victory. They can’t really count on Manning to do the same. But if Freeney’s injury takes him out as a play maker, that’ll be a big blow to the Colts’ defense.
Non-football-related: This is the 10th time Miami has hosted the Super Bowl, most in the history of the game. Queen Latifah will sing “America the Beautiful” and Carrie Underwood will sing the National Anthem before the game. The halftime show performer will be ‘The Who’ (let the puns and jokes begin!). It’s been reported that they’ll play a medley of some of their top hits. Jim Nantz and Phil Simms will call the game. I heard them do the play-by-play for a couple Charger games and thought they did a good job.
Commercials- This year, the cost of a 30 sec. commercial is an est. $2.8 million, down from last year’s all-time high of $3 million. Some notable companies not airing a commercial are Pepsi (first time in 23 years), FedEx, and all U.S.- owned car companies (2nd year straight…I wonder why). Doritos will be airing three viewer-created ads and the U.S. Census has a 30 sec. spot reminding everyone to fill out their census forms (sober, hopefully). I usually look forward to movie trailers the most, and we’ll at least get to see Iron Man 2 (yay!), Robin Hood (hopefully yay?), and Avatar: The Last Airbender (boo!). And of course, there’s some controversy. University of Florida QB Tim Tebow will appear with his mother in a commercial for the ever-so delightful group, Focus on the Family. On the flip side, the gay dating site, ManCrunch, had their 30 sec. ad rejected because “it violated CBS’ broadcast standards”. You can view the ad here:
So overall, the game, commercials, and performances should all be good and worth watching. After the game, I’ll put up a post talking about the commercials.
As for who I think is going to win? I’ll be rooting for the Saints for several reasons:
1) Drew Brees is a former Charger who still gets mad respect from us Charger fans
2) Saints RB Reggie Bush is a native San Diegan
3) My good friends, the Valen brothers, are huge Saints fans
4) As much as I want to cheer for the AFC rep, I still think the Chargers would have beaten the Colts. Not saying they don’t deserve to be in the Super Bowl…just a little bitter still about how our season ended.
5) Come on…it’s New Orleans! It took the Saints a while to get good and the city is STILL rebuilding and recovering from Hurricane Katrina. They deserve this celebration!
But…honestly, I think the Colts are going to win. Sorry. If the Saints have the same soft defense, Peyton will eat them alive. It’s hard to vote against the 4-time league MVP.
In case if you haven’t heard (or you’re not a nerd), they’re making a Green Lantern movie due out in 2011. Ryan Reynolds will play Hal Jordan aka Green Lantern (which is a DC character).
But…if you saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he also played Deadpool (which is a Marvel character).
Conflict of interest? I don’t seriously think there will be. But it’s fun to imagine that there is! That’s where youtube’s ItsJustSomeRandomGuy comes in. They have a series parodying the “Mac vs. PC” commercials called “I’m a Marvel and I’m a DC”. Enter nerd hilarity.
With the success of the Iron Man movie and hype building up for its sequel, Iron Man 2 (due out in 2010), and the feature-length film, Thor, in development (due out in 2011), Marvel is building steam for its planned feature-length blockbuster, The Avengers. With most of the Avengers crew locked in (no word on the Wasp and Ant-Man, even if they’re going to be in the film, yet), the big question remains: Who will play Captain America in The First Avenger: Captain America?
This was a popular topic of conversation within my nerd horde days after Disney purchased Marvel. My sister even started the conversation on her facebook.
I know, Captain America is the posterboy for this pro-America, ultra-nationalistic attitude that makes us anti-US imperialists throw up. But to give him some credit, he hasn’t always agreed with America. Regardless on how you may feel about his imagery and politics, he’s an important fixture in the Marvel Universe.
With that said, who will be awarded with this coveted role?
An artist's rendering of an expanded San Diego Convention Center on the bay side. (Tucker Sadler Architects)
Today is a comic book themed day. Just saw this on twitter from my good friend Liza. That’s a whole lot of money, especially considering the financial crisis we’re in. But there is the potential to recover the money spent from the revenue brought in from large conventions, tourism, etc. San Diego is already an attractive place because of the weather. Plus, I’m sort of biased because I want Comic-Con to stay at home. Since I’m not a current resident, it’s tough to say. Especially since I’m still trying to find classes to add in our severely underfunded CSU-system. What do you think? (VOTE IN THE POLL AT THE BOTTOM)
The $53 million question
The yearly price to expand San Diego’s convention center is revealed and has city and tourism officials asking . . .
A San Diego Convention Center expansion being championed by Mayor Jerry Sanders and the tourism industry got a price tag yesterday – at least $52.5 million a year in new taxes or fees over three decades.
Options being discussed include a $1 to $2 surcharge on San Diego Zoo and SeaWorld San Diego admissions, a 1 percent to 3 percent tax on food and drink sales and an increase in the city’s hotel tax from 10.5 percent to as high as 15.5 percent.
Convention center officials want to add 400,000 square feet to the bayfront facility, saying they stand to lose large, lucrative trade shows to cities with bigger exhibit halls.
The poster child for flight risk is Comic-Con International, the San Diego-born pop-culture extravaganza.
So the big news from the land of nerds is the purchase of Marvel Entertainment by the Walt Disney Company. A lot of initial reaction seems to be disappointment and sadness. Comic book nerds are members of the “counter-culture” and Disney symbolizes the mainstream that rejected them. But I’ve seen some who defend the acquisition, saying that it’ll allow Marvel access to more resources and a chance to reach a new crop of fans. I’ve written in the past about the commercialization of nerd culture and what that means for us and the things we love. I feel this is only a continuation of it. I want to believe that corporations swallowing up comic books will preserve it for the long term, but the recent handling of a few of my childhood franchises has made me pessimistic. While trying to save them in the long run, comic books may die an early death due to losing its soul. But I could be dead wrong. I hope I am. Really.
I fell in love with comic books because they were abnormal, gritty, and the closest thing to reality that was offered to my age-range. Disney is none of those. Besides, Disney has horrible labor practices and is pretty racist. So they get another slice of the pie. It’s hard for me to support another corporate monopoly takeover.
But it’s funny how this has turned into a sort of “Marvel Civil War”, like Marvel’s Civil War. So as my title says, which side do you stand on? (VOTE IN MY POLL AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS ENTRY!)
By RYAN NAKASHIMA, AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima, Ap Business Writer – 10 mins ago
LOS ANGELES – The Walt Disney Co. is buying Marvel Entertainment Inc. for $4 billion in cash and stock, bringing such characters as Iron Man and Spider-Man into the family of Mickey Mouse and WALL-E.
Ok, this is my last SDCC 2009 related blog, I swear (for now).
But I must speak on an important & controversial topic coming out of the Con: the panel for the new ‘Twilight’ sequel, ‘New Moon’. If you don’t know what ‘Twilight’ is then…I really don’t know how you found this blog from the rock you still live under. Love it or hate it, it’s kind of a big deal nowadays.
I know the first movie had a presence at Comic-Con last year, don’t know if the uproar was as big. In any case, the new film was a trending topic among nerds this time around. The big question: does Twilight and its legion of tweeny fans deserve to be at the largest gathering of social outcasts in the country?
Let’s ask Kevin Smith real quick and see what he says:
Good point Kevin. It was very moist indeed (see my Comic-Con roundup post to see the clips).
Do you agree? I think he makes some good points. Nerds are pretty quick to judge each other sometimes, especially if they don’t agree with your choice obsession.
Is “Twilight” something you would automatically label as nerdy? Not really. Is it mainstream enough that you can still like it but still be one of the cool kids? Probably. Is this debate going to change the course of human history? Lord, I hope not.
But if you think about it, Comic-Con has been going down this deep, dark path towards mainstream-ism. It’s no longer known as a “comic convention” but a place for big-time movie and television studios to hype up their next project. Only about 30-40% of the convention space is actually reserved for comic book-related booths. There are plenty of movies that have nothing to do with comics or traditional “nerd culture” that make an appearance. Is “Twilight” really changing the make up of Comic-Con enough for a justified uproar?
I’ve always just wanted to use the poll feature on this thing. So let’s start with something basic. Which one is better? I’ll leave it up to yall. Storyline. Characters. Weapons. Colors. Use of aliens. Whatever! Which franchise rules the make-believe galaxy???
vs. 
