Ah, good. Here’s my entertainment for the weekend.

Kurt Schlitcher, a contributor to the late Andrew Breitbart’s paranoid-loner feeding-trough masquerading as a “Conservative” movie-blog “Big Hollywood,” has caught up with the year-old phenomenon of “Bronies” (adult/male fans of the “My Little Pony” reboot)… and has decided they’re a threat to America, masculinity and Western Civilization.

Money quote from Schlichter:

“As sickening as it is, we can’t just ban grown men from acting like idiots because we disapprove of their lifestyle choices – after all, we aren’t progressives. It’s still a free country – coincidentally due entirely to the efforts of men and women who put aside childish things to contribute to society instead of feeding at the trough and then sitting on their expansive backsides as they eagerly clap like seals at the antics of colorful cartoon steeds.”

Yegh. Now, I’m not a Brony myself – it’s a clever show, not really my bag, I lean in more of an “Adventure Time” direction, etc – but I “get” why it’s popular, why it has it’s surprising adult/male fanbase (I’m talking outside of it’s place in the cartoon-fetishism realm, different discussion) and so on. But even if I didn’t care for the series, this sort of thing boils my blood.

The tiresome fixation of “cultural conservatives” and “traditionalists” on binary gender-divisions in popular culture – the nonexistant “War on Boys,” the fringe of “Men’s Rights Activism,” the resistance to anti-bullying legislation (“it’s not bullying, it’s how boys learn to be MEN!”), the terror at the “feminization of society” – it’s all part of the same last-ditch backlash fueling the activist anti-abortion/contraception movements, the resistance to gay marriage and the campaigns of clowns like Rick Santorum: The last remnants of the Bad Old Days lashing out as it dawns on them that their anachronistic patriarchy and all the social, religious and cultural superstitions that went with it are crumbling… but still alive enough to do damage on their way down.

As I said, I may not be a Brony; but I’ve seen how well that particular fandom can mobilize when it gets it’s dander up about something – and while I’ve had my differences of late with The Internet (and do NOT endorse illegal/harassing behavior) I can think of few cultural-entities more worthy of It’s attention than Schlichter and the rest of the noxious Breitbart Clique…

So, then, HERE’S the original article.

HERE’S “Big Hollywood,” the main website on which it appeared.

HERE’S Breitbart.com, the central hub from which BH originates.

HERE’s where you’d contact the site.

Oh, and Kurt Schlichter is on Twitter @KurtSchlichter

And lest you feel that maybe giving Breitbart.com and/or “The Bigs” a headache over this one stupid article is a bit silly, remember – they were also behind THIS. Gotta love the New Media…

Remember Pizza Hut UK’s “Hot Dog Pizza?” Well, Pizza Hut’s Middle East branch aims to do them one better: The “Crown Crust Pizza” isn’t filled with cheeseburgers – it IS cheeseburgers. And it’s topped with what are essentially Big Mac fixin’s:

Here’s what grabs me about this ad, though – the way the main customer guy treats “Let’s order a burger in a pizza place” as a knowing, obvious joke at the restaurant’s expense. It suddenly dawns on me… have I been reading this “obscene versions of American food originating in foriegn territories” trend wrong by assuming Pizza Hut etc. is using my overseas friends as labrats for future domestic product? Are y’all actually ordering/making food that looks like a perfect parody of American excess at American restaurants as ironic parody; i.e. a chance to “role-play” as a stereotypically gluttonish American fast-food consumers (“Ha ha! Look at me! My food is made of different food! Let’s go get a SUV and vote for Palin!”) in much the same way that American chinese food establishments decorate themselves like Fu Manchu’s hideout?

Because, if so… that’s pretty damn funny. Applaud yourselves 😉

One more “waiting for ‘Avengers'” episode before I actually finally see the damn thing.

“G.I. Joe: Retaliation” has a new trailer, which answers some questions as to how much of the story from the (unfairly-maligned, IMO) original film is actually being continued here. Answer: A whole bunch.

It also makes it clear that it will continue the first film’s anti-private-military-contractor theme; with Cobra (formerly “M.A.R.S.”) now emerging as a Blackwater-esque force brought in ostensibly to protect the U.S. from the (framed) “traitorous” Joes.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Mel Gibson seems – at long last – to finally be near “the bottom.” I’ve long rejected the idea that there could be (or need to be) anything ‘wrong’ with him other than garden variety anti-semitism and Christian whackjobbery, possibly exacerbated by alcoholism… but you can’t listen to that Joe Esterhasz tape and not conclude that there may actually be something profoundly broken in the way this guy is wired – he could very well have a serious mental illness.

In any case, he’s in deep shit career-wise: “The Beaver” tanked, his new movie is going straight-to-DVD, nobody wants to make his Viking movie and the Maccabees project is almost-certainly dead. At this point, he’s only slightly more employable than Lindsay Lohan or Steven Seagal… and, appropriately, he may next be going exactly where they did: A stunt-casting guest-spot in an in-betweener Robert Rodriguez “Machete” movie.

Yeah. Not a joke. Deadline reports that Gibson is close to signing on for an unspecified role in the sequel “Machete Kills,” which is supposed to involve Danny Trejo’s titular vigilante being conscripted by the U.S. and Mexican governments to stop a druglord’s plan to launch a rocket into outer space because… whatever, it’s “Moonraker” but with Machete. I’m wondering if they plan to keep playing the political angle from the first movie – tongue in cheek or not, setting Machete up as striking back against the then-raging anti-immigrant fervor in the U.S. did a lot to elevate the film above the usual Rodriguez grindhouse homage schtick.

FWIW, Rodriguez said in the past that his grand plan was for “Machete 3” (“Machete Kills Again”) to be a “space opera.” I’d kind of love it if he was serious, and the “space rocket” stuff in this one led to Machete winding up on an alien world a’la Flash Gordon or John Carter at the very end. If nothing else it’d “go” nicely with Rodriguez next big planned movie after this and “Sin City 2;” a live-action remake of the Ralph Bakshi/Frank Frazetta collaboration “Fire & Ice.”

People seem to remember “Summer Rental” more, but “The Great Outdoors” is the superior John Candy Goes On Vacation movie.

A “Late Shift”-style movie chronicling the collapse of “Chapelle’s Show,” Dave Chapelle’s subsequent career-immolation and they way both (briefly) led to the otherwise-inexplicable elevation of one-joke-wonder Carlos Mencia to “stardom” would be a thousand times more interesting and funny than any YouTube clip from either series that people insist is “a classic bit” and “still totally holds up.”

There have never been enough video games where you play as a non-human, non-biped character.

(more after the jump)

It is, with rare exception, bad form to “go after” the families/spouses of political candidates. However, it is an unavoidable truism that Mitt Romney’s kids look/act just like the bad guys in “Disturbing Behavior.”

Reading that sentence is the first time anyone has thought of “Disturbing Behavior” in over a decade.

Are Harvey Danger and Nada Surf still recording/performing? I’d like to know, just not enough to actually google it.

The secret to Ron Paul’s political viability is that The Internet has made it possible for all the young people with that special combination of being nonempathetic enough to be “conservative” before turning 30, paranoid enough to believe a 1984-style dictatorship is still a remote possibility yet far too comfortably class-sheltered to rock the bunker/militia/seperatist scene to find eachother.

If the rules in “Inception” really are meant to be a metaphor for Christopher Nolan’s approach to creating/maintaining audience-immersion in filmmaking, then “The Dark Knight Rises” will be 3 minutes long – ending immediately after Mario Cotillard appears out of nowhere and shoots Christian Bale in the face after having uttered one word in his ridiculous Batman-Voice.

The Internet will go waaaaaay to easy on “The Amazing Spider-Man,” way too hard on “The Man of Steel,” and will not “own up” to either case until at least 2016.

The reason that glam-metal/cock-rock/butt-rock/arena-rock etc. “went away” is that hip-hop went mainstream and filled in the “aggressive/self-mythologizing/hypermasculine/teen-male-anger/music-to-enter-the-stadium-to” niche. There’s a sociology paper in there, somewhere…

If you honestly do not “get” why the “Obama eats dogs!” meme is blatantly fueled by an undercurrent of oldschool xenophobia, “other-ism” and – yes – racism; while the “Romney put his dog on the car roof!” meme is at worst a mountain/molehill situation… I don’t know that I can help you.

Every member of the mainstream Entertainment Press who is legitimately SHOCKED that “Think Like a Man” opened at Number 1 this weekend is basically admitting that they don’t have very many black friends and/or are not nearly as attuned to the popular-culture outside of their own “niche” of it than they probably assumed they were.

Now with EMBEDS! (below)

Warning: “Intermission” includes MASSIVE SPOILERS for “Cabin In The Woods.”

The Escapist is putting together a convention of it’s very own: The Escapist Expo.

The event will be held in Durham, NC from September 14 to 16. Among those scheduled to attend include Yahtzee, Jim Sterling, Graham and Paul from LoadingReadyRun, Gavin Dunne and myself. In what “capacity” will we be there? Stay tuned.

Looking forward to see folks there!

Oh goody – “Need For Speed” is making the jump to the big screen.

For those keeping track, the score is:

ZELDA: No movie.
SUPER MARIO BROS: One insignificant movie, two decades ago.
METROID: No movie.
MEGA MAN: No movie.
METAL GEAR: No movie.
CASTLEVANIA: No movie.
FINAL FANTASY: Two movies, one bad one just-okay-as-fanservice.

But “Need For Speed?” Oh yeah, let’s film the FUCK out of that. Egh…