Fanboys: Put Up Or Shut Up

So I got into an online altercation I was unaware of. I read an article at Deadlinehollywooddaily.com about Marvel Entertainment hiring writers. (Actually the article was in Variety ) Anyway it sounded intriguing, and I wanted to get a link and maybe find out some more information.

I am unfortunately a Fanboy. I don't speak Klingon or have changed my religion to Jedi. But when those big geeky movies come out, I get excited. So being one, I know that Fanboys, for all their faults, are resourceful and thought if I scrolled through the comments I might be able to find an e-mail address to apply or whatever.

What I found shocked me. Here are these people who have bitched about nipples on the Batsuit, Superman's "S" being too small, Flames on Optimus Prime, Heath Ledger would be an awful Joker (and then praised him as the best ever). They now have a chance to write for Marvel Entertainment and maybe even save their beloved characters from having people who "don't know anything" from “raping their childhood”. Yet all they can do is say things like this:

“Meh. Just hold onto the good stuff you write and send it around when your year is up. First look / last refusal is a joke. But this idea is a joke. No good writer is going to give away a year of his time for a non-negotiable deal. The writers who join this program will either be desperate, fresh off the bus, or both, making the whole thing a shot in the dark talent-wise.” From A Writer

“Marvel = Scumbags sweatshop owners Thank god I hate comic books. They are no better than all those fly by night “Talent Agencies” around this country that promise stage moms everywhere (for a fee) a chance to get their little “Farrah” or “Shanequa” the career in “The Biz” that Milf never had”. From etoro18

“This is a total scam to avoid hiring proper writers and paying decent living wages. No surprise it’s done by Marvel.” From bailee

Its goes on and on. I was shocked. Who the hell do these losers living in their mother’s basements think they are? So I got angry and wrote:

“You guys are amazing. There is a potential to put years and years of bitching about “How you would do it…” in action, with an opportunity to write for Marvel. Yet everyone is content to bitch about it and what a “scam” it is. I guess you guys are better at talking, than putting your talent where your mouth is.” From Anon

To which Thomas R. Hart from http://gomanga.com/manga/ittakesawizard.php took me to task.

“I guess you guys are better at talking, than putting your talent where your mouth is. I always find it funny when somebody has a big mouth, but doesn’t have the balls to sign with a name, hell, even a fake name.” Comment by Thomas R. Hart

So let me respond to Thomas R. Hart of http://gomanga.com/manga/ittakesawizard.php.

Tommy

I should have known better than to post on a Fanboy site. I go to a lot of these sites, www.aintitcoolnews.com, www.comingsoon.net, and the like. You guys are always so desperate to get just a little taste of the latest Star Wars-Star Trek-Lord of the Rings-Bat/Super/Spider-Man-Transformer Summer block buster. Yet when you get it, all you seem to do, is take, "Flames on Optimus Prime" and use it as an excuse to say how much the movie is going to suck. Then you are first in line to buy the Imax tickets. And then to go back onto various websites and complain some more.

My point in my post is that instead of bitching, you have a chance to shape the beloved characters the “suits know nothing about.” But everyone on these sites seemed to be more interested in saying its all a “scam”, than applying, and seeing if they can put their years of complaining to good use.

Yet Tommy, all you focused on what that I did not put my name on what I said. Well here is the deal. I put my name on what I WRITE. Be it a play, a screenplay, a spec script, a TV pilot, a webseries, or blog.

I am trying to find out how to apply. I am gonna see if I can put my good ideas to some constructive use. If I am not accepted than “Oh well.” But bottom line, with this and with any other project I attempt, good outcome or bad, I put my talent where my mouth is.

Thomas R. Hart of http://gomanga.com/manga/ittakesawizard.php, you are a douche.

Jason

Its March 27, 2009, I Don’t Care About Politics… And I Feel Fine.

I came to a stark realization today. I don’t care what is going on in politics. Not at all. I haven’t watched MSNBC in weeks. I feel no need to listen to my podcast of Real Time with Bill Maher. I have given up watching Meet the Press on Sunday mornings, for Rock of Love Bus with Bret Michaels. Political things are happening. I just don’t care.

This is odd. Six months ago I was rabid. I was a political junkie. I couldn’t get enough. In my down time, I studied the Electoral Map to see how “we” could swing a marginal victory. I watched Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper religiously. I even popped over to Fox News until I couldn’t take "the crazy" any more. My mother and I would IM about politics. My Dad and I would ramp up our “You are ____ years old and you don’t know what you are talking about” arguments. But now it is March 27, and I feel nothing.

Its not that there is nothing going on. Worst economic crisis in 80 something years. Still at war in Iraq, probably going to ramp up in Afghanistan. Rush Limbaugh wishing for President Obama’s failure. And my reaction to all of it… "Meh..."

Maybe its cause my guy won. I don’t have my hatred of the Bush Administration to push me to “find things out” on my own. Maybe I am stupidly trusting the people in power to do the right thing, just like other people stupidly trusted Bush. But honestly I don’t care. I don’t have that outrage.

I mean I could go off on how Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer and that conservative outrage is his shtick. So its foolish for the Republican party to cow-tow to what ever crazy thing comes out of his mouth. I could go off on Senator Richard Shelby wanting American auto-companies to go bankrupt because his state is home to foreign auto-company plants. I could rail against the dangerous legislative precedent it sets to tax a group of people we don’t like, like the AIG bonus people. I could call for the heads of all the people who screwed up on Wall Street and at the banks. But at the end of the day, it seems like I would just be going through the motions.

I guess I just enjoy the election stuff. Primaries, caucuses, debates, polling data, political analysis, all that jazz. The exciting stuff. Governing is boring. Elections are awesome.

So I guess I will just have to muddle through until the middle of 2010. That should be when Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal announce they are running for President, and the circus will come back into town.

Sarah Palin running for President… Oh 2012 you can’t get here soon enough!

Jason

The "R"-word, Really?

I know words have power. I know some words hurt. I also know that some words, like "spatula" are funny, and that some words like "wagknot" are not a word.

I also know that in America we have the power of free speech. As Americans we have freedom to say what ever we want about whom or what ever we want, unless you are one of the Dixie Chicks.

But I see a storm a-brewin'. It first reared it, ugly head this summer. And now it has poked its ugly head up again. Bill O'Reilly has his annual "War on Christmas" we we here at The Spike Report now have our own war....

THE WAR ON RETARDS... oh that sounds bad...

THE WAR AGAINST RETARDS!... that is kinda worse....

THE WAR AGAINST PEOPLE WHO WON'T LET YOU SAY "RETARD".... wordy, but it will work for now.

This all started over the summer when the movie Tropic Thunder caused "controversy" because it used the phrase "Full Retard," in talking about actors who do movies where they play mentally ill people to win Oscars. It was silly. But the movie came out, people saw it in context. Robert Downey Jr. got nominated for an Oscar for it, and then it all went away.

Well it came back this week, when President Obama (GOD I LOVE SAYING THAT) went on The Tonight Show and said something akin to his bowling being in the Special Olympics. This again got the Pro-Retards, or are they Anti-Retards, all riled up and the President had to apologize.

But honestly... really?

Trust me I know there are situations where saying "retard" is inappropriate. For example, when you tell a co-worker "Hey I'm not retarded", and then you remember that said co-worker has a child with Down's syndrome. Yeah you are kinda an asshole if you do that.

But if a guy cuts you off on the freeway, almost causing an accident because he is on a cell phone. That guy is a retard, he is also an asshole.

For me "retard" is simply a more extreme way of calling some one an idiot.

Example: Bill won't vote Democrat because all they do is raise taxes. OK in this case Bill is stupid.

But Bill won't vote Democrat because they love terrorists and hate America. Well now Bill has kicked it up a notch and is now retarded.

See how that works.

So to all of you Anti-Retard types... or well... Pro-Retard types, don't take away my precious retard. There is a need for this word beyond the medical classification of someone's mental capacity. We need it to call the non mentally challenged yet, really stupid people... REALLY REALLY STUPID.

Because let's face it, a world where you can't call a drunk guy who has been hitting on the girl in the bar holding hands with her husband a RETARD... well that is just not a world I want to live in.

Jason

Waiting For My St Patrick’s Day Miracle

So it’s St. Patty’s Day. It seems to be a holiday people love. I am just not sure why.

Kids love it because they get to wear green and pinch those who do not. College Kids love it because it is an excuse (like they need an one) to drink themselves into a green beer coma. Adults like it because it is chance to go out relive their college years of drinking themselves into a green beer coma.

It’s the only holiday with crass mass marketing of : Shamrock Shuffles, Shamrock Shakes, Leprechaun greeting cards, the aforementioned green beer, and more corned beef than you can shake a four leaf clover at. Yet no one cares.

Have you ever heard anyone say “I hate how St. Patrick’s Day has become so over-commercialized”? Never. No one ever longs for the “good old days” when St Patrick’s Day, “meant something”. You never hear “In my day, on St. Patrick’s Day we…” , because you did nothing. St. Patrick’s Day never changes.

Beer, Beef and Green that is really all there is to the day. There are no St. Patrick’s Day gifts or candies. No St. Patrick’s Day moral that we all have to adhere too. It doesn’t even have a damn mascot, unless you count a non-descript Leprechaun.

Well I say no more! You need to step it up St. Patrick’s Day. No longer can you just be a day for wearing green, pinching, and puking up green beer.

I want "Clover the Magic Leprechaun" to leave good children lucky green candy and bad children a potato famine. I want people to complain that it’s March 16th and still they have not gotten all of the St. Patrick’s Day shopping done. I want families to gather together and get into political arguments and have someone say “Guys, stop! It’s St. Patrick’s Day.”

And I want a fucking miracle. I want something stupid and unexplainable to happen, and then have some little kid look at it in awe and say “It’s a St. Patrick’s Day Miracle, Mommy.”

That would in itself, would be a St. Patrick’s Day Miracle.

Jason

Quandary About Boundaries Of Social Networking

I have a Facebook account. Most of you know that, because I shamelessly hock this blog on it. Worse than shamelessly.

The nice thing about it is I can catch up with people I have not talked to in a while and find out how they are doing and what not. It’s a way of keeping up with their lives, but not actually having to talk to them, and have them REALLY tell you about their lives.

So I noticed one friend, who I was closer to back in the day, and whom I have always known as married, has now changed their relationship status from “married” to “single”. At first I kind of thought this was a bit. But when the following statuses seemed to reflect a real life, true break up had happened, I knew it wasn’t a joke.

So now my quandary… how do I go about getting the information without being a jerk? I mean we don’t “talk” anymore. At most I post a goofy status thing and this person occasionally posts a goofy comment about it. That’s it. But now something serious has happened, and I think it would be shitty of me to finally open up a dialogue just so I can find out the gritty details of this person’s newly ended relationship. And even if I did, it’s not right to have this person retread their pain one more time just for me.

I also can not ask someone else who knows them on Facebook, because all the things are posted. So if I ask Y about X then it’s all over Facebook. This social network thing is really cramping my ability to gossip.

Perhaps this is the problem with social networking, its closeness without true closeness. You are involved with people’s lives, but only at a distance. Yes, you now if they are married, dating, have kids, lost their job, what ever. You just REALLY don’t know what their day to day lives are like.

I guess for that you need to keep interacting with people and not the computer. And if they are important to you, don’t let them be someone you only see on Facebook.

So for my friend’s relationship status, I guess I will never know. I guess I will just have to make it up.

Probably juicer that way anyway.

Jason

The Spike Report Bigger Question: Why Would Anyone Want To Date Bret Michaels?

My friend Jenny had a great quote on her Facebook under what TV shows she watches: "Any show where Bret Micheals dates a Whore." Funny cause its true.

So we are winding down to the final four on Rock of Love Bus. Today he kicked off two more strippers, and now has only a handful of strippers, groupies and girls with severe Daddy issues left. And the question I have as I watch this show, is not who should Bret pick. My question is Why would any of these girls want Bret?

Lets get the hair issue out of the way. Its his hair. When you pay that much for fake hair its YOUR hair, end of discussion. And I guess he is attractive enough for a 46 year old man. (This still makes him twice as old as anyone else on Rock of Love.) He does have money. He does have a "career". And he is "famous." So I guess in that respect someone would want to be with him. But there are plenty of rich 40-something guys with fake hair out there, well there were before the economy tanked.

But watching this show, and taking those previous things as a given, why would you want to date Bret? Lets take the previous paragraph out of the equation. Ladies, if a guy asked you out on a date and he took you to a strip club, wouldn't you have serious questions about him? The only other guy in pop culture who did that was Travis Bickle, the guy DeNiro played in Taxi Driver.

Bret's thing this season has been he needs to get a girl who can handle his "lifestyle", which includes being on the road, playing rock 'n roll, and partying. Again lets take the Rock star thing out of it. If your friend was a dating a 46 year old guy who's job was to be on the road, liked hair-metal and got drunk every night, you would tell her to steer clear of him.

Also would any of you ladies want to date a guy who as a prerequisite to getting together, would require you to participate in "everyday" activities like: A Mud Bowl, or Truck Stop Games or Bikini Day Care?

Look I understand how this quite an opportunity for strippers, escorts and amateur porn stars that are not "working their way through school". But at the end of the day the purpose of this show, is for Bret to be able to have sex with lots of women who have low self esteem on TV... no wait its for him to "find love." And if it is for "love" then a) Ladies why would you degrade yourself for a guy like that and b.) Bret why would you want to be in a relationship with a woman who would be wiling to degrade herself like that. Going down a slip n' slide in a bikini holding a hot dog, is not a sign of how much she cares about you. Its a sign of how little she cares about herself.

So Bret, if you want love, and want someone who can keep up with your life style, get a young version of Sharon Osbourne. Someone who is smart, won't put up with your crap, and will still let you go out on the road, get drunk and act like an ass. I mean she took a marginally talented ex-lead singer of a heavy metal band and made him bigger than anyone, including himself, ever thought he would be. Sound familiar?

That way every one wins. You get someone to love, and these girls can back to doing what they do best. Taking their clothes off for money and drugs to work through their Daddy issues.

Jason

You call that The Watchmen?

I hate when movie studios change take liberties with cherished comic book icons. Saw The Watchmen over the weekend, and OH THE CHANGES THEY MADE.

Its nothing like I remember from the Saturday morning TV show, when I was a kid.

So until they FINALLY release all 57 episodes on DVD, we will just have to watch the clip below. Honestly, this is all The Watchmen you will ever need.

Seriously, Rorschach not liking pizza?!?!

Reality Treading Onto Reality Shows

Well here is the unforeseen problem with doing TV shows with "real" people. Real stuff happens. Over the past few weeks we have had real life situations treading over on to Reality television. The exciting thing, I guess, about reality shows is that people act with raw emotions and do outlandish things. That makes for great TV, until you remember there are real people involved.

When Julia Roberts leaves her groom at the alter for Richard Gere, its okay. Cause Julia's groom is an actor, and he will be a serial killer on Law and Order next week, and he will be good. But now take this mess with The Bachelor and his picking someone and then dumping them, and then picking the other girl. It made my head swim, and I didn't even watch. It may be exciting, but all I could think of was, "that poor girl" about both of them.

Then on Girls Next Door, which if you watched Sunday's "Season Finale", you saw that Kendra moved out on her own, Bridget has gotten her own show, and Hef is concerned that Holly is not getting what she wants out of his relationship with her. WOW what a great "cliff-hanger" if it were LOST or Two and 1/2 Men. But these are real people, and Perez Hilton let us know the Girls Next Door were banging other people weeks ago, and that they had been "doing it" while they were still Hef's girlfriends. Except Bridget, which makes her really committed to a relationship with a man she shares with 2 other woman, or retarded.

Here is the thing, if this were a scripted show, with actors, you wouldn't know or care. I mean does anyone even know if the entire cast of Bones is having marital problems. And if they were, it would never effect the show? No. But in "reality", when your lead gets a divorce, it effects the entire "reality" of the show.

And now on to the next victim of the reality encroaching onto "Reality", Jon on Jon and Kate Plus 8. Now if you watch that, and I do, you have noticed over the last few months, what a shrew Kate has become. You sit and watch and go, "How can he stay married to her?" Well according to this story, the answer is "He can't". Apparently Jon and Kate are separating. Again if this were House, it doesn't even register when you watch. But now once again "reality" has set in.

I guess this is what happens when you base TV shows on real life, "real life" things happen, and not in the way people want it to. Sometimes, it doesn't make for good TV. It makes for painful TV. As a child of divorce, it is painful no matter what age it happens. Twice as bad, if it happens on TV.

By the way Jon, if you are reading this, and if you have to split the kids, take: Joel, Aaden, Cara and Alexis. I have issues with Hannah, I'm just saying.

Trust me

Jason

Preview Review: Transformers 2 Revenge of the Fallen

We here at The Spike Report know that times are hard and a dollar just doesn't go as far as it used to. So we are doing what we can to help save you a little money were you can. And the first way is our Preview Review.

Now they say that the best parts of the movie are always in the trailer. With this axiom in mind we are going to watch a trailer for a movie that is not out yet. After seeing only this trailer, we will then give you a review of the entire film. Then you will have had the entire movie experience months early, but you will have saved the money you would have spent for a $10 dollar ticket and a $20 dollar popcorn.

This week's selection: Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

And here we go.




This film is the sequel to best film of 2007 about Robots turning into cars, Transformers. In this installment, we find more Transformers arriving on Earth all over the globe. We know this because Director Michael Bay shows us the most famous parts of the various countries the Transformers arrive in. But not all Transformers arriving are good. We know this because they destroy an AMERICAN aircraft carrier. Again Michael Bay needs to spoon feed us. If it were an English aircraft carrier, these Transformers could be good. But no, its an American one, so we know they are bad.

You know the great thing about Michael Bay? When he talks about his movies he never mentions silly things like story or characters. It is always how "its bigger" and "what the military let him shoot, and then blow up. " That is exactly what these new Transformers do. They are coming to life and immediately blowing stuff up, real good. For a reason that in the full film will seem inconsequential to things blowing up, it is all because Sam once again played by Shia LaBeouf has something that these new evil Transformers need in order to rule the universe. Sam most likely picked this up in the first movie. We just didn't see it, because it had to be made up once Transformers 2 got green lit. (Think Jack Sparrow's compass in Pirates 2)

So once again Optimus Prime and the Autobots do battle with the evil Decepticons to keep Sam and his new plot device safe. In the process of keeping him safe, they blow up lots of things, kill other Transformers and create lots of carnage. And in the last act, thru an act seen as an "ultimate sacrifice", and an idea from Sam that is so crazy, it just might work , they will save the world. Until Transformers 3.

So hope this helps keep some money in your pocket in these trying economic times.

Transforming and rolling out...

Jason