So, "The Internship" is coming out - How was I involved?

This Vince Vaughn/ Owen Wilson comedy was filming last summer. I happened to be in the building where they were filming, but it wasn't at Google in the Bay Area. The scenes on the steps there? That's a sort of union-like building at Georgia Tech.



I was scheduled to give a presentation after lunch, and I was delayed thanks to the scene you see in the trailer with Aasif Mandvi talking about how lucky they are to be interning at Google.

It was weird.  You kind of forget that when they're filming a comedy, the scene is funny to the audience but not to the characters, so Mandvi was improvising and trying different things, but to a room full of stone faced people in beanies.

The director, meanwhile, was laughing behind the camera, but nobody on the crew looked even mildly amused.  So, do with that what you will.

I know this, because I got trapped watching the filming when I was coming back from the men's room and trying to re-enter the room where I was presenting.

I think we were supposed to sign an NDA about this, but I didn't sign jack.

If that 0.5 seconds film you see has a little extra juice, that's The League you sense there.

By the way, everything about this movie makes me feel incredibly old.

Also, Vince Vaughn is about my height, which was surprising.  But he's in much better shape, which was less surprising.

The Orson Scott Card Conundrum - Social Ideals and The Purchase of a Superman Comic

All right, here we go.

I don't really want to write this post, but it's about Superman, it's in the news, etc..

Famed Sci-Fi writer Orson Scott Card has some social views that are well known within the comics and sci-fi "communities".  Card has written some highly successful work such as the famed Ender's Game (which I haven't read), and started working in comics a bit with Ultimate Iron Man several years ago now (also - haven't read).

Specifically, Card takes issue with homosexuality and gay marriage.  He sits on the board of an organization that is more or less dedicated to opposing gay marriage in the US, the National Organization for Marriage.

Last week, when the new Adventures of Superman was announced, Card was listed among the writers, and (if you're keeping score), specifically, he was one of the creators associated with the project that made me blink a bit while reviewing the roster of talent.

Full disclosure:  I am fully in support of marriage rights for the LGBT community and believe that this is the civil rights issue of our generation.  Fundamentally, I believe in extending the same legal privileges to all consenting adults in a free society, and am against legal loopholes or half-measures that would place legal or social restrictions on someone based upon race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.  </ lefty boilerplate>

The questions then arise:

Unky League says "Don't Forget: Thursday is Valentine's Day!"

Boy, Valentine's Day!  Who doesn't just LOVE Valentine's Day?

I am guessing many of us just got done paying off most of the Christmas bills, and now its time to buy yet another thing for your significant other.  Great.  She's a wonderful dame.  She deserves the world.  Unfortunately, most of us are both tapped out of money and ideas here at the mid-point of February.

And, let's be honest, when we say that we need to be thinking of something for our significant other - for those of us straight dudes with a straight lady, we know that it really means we're expected to buy something expensive for our straight lady friend, but we aren't getting @#$%.

I know that in other arrangements, things differ, but I have never, ever heard anyone of the female persuasion in a relationship with someone of the male persuasion pondering anything on V-Day except where they want to go to dinner and when.

Signal Rewatch: It turns out "Avengers" is a pretty good movie

I didn't hate Avengers the first time I saw it, but I also wasn't a huge fan of the movie.  I liked it well enough, but something about it didn't click with me as much as I was hoping for.  Look, straight up, I'm a Captain America fan, and I kind of though the movie gave Cap short shrift.  I think I had expectations vis-a-vis Cap's assumed leadership role in Avengers, and that just didn't happen, exactly.

But as a fun roller coaster ride?  Yeah, it's pretty phenomenal.

I still don't quite get how people even followed the movie who hadn't paid to see the other Avengers movies in the lead up to this one, especially if you missed Thor (and, really, why would you miss Thor?  My MOM liked that movie).

On a second viewing, a bit more calibrated for what one could expect from Avengers, I didn't just watch it to enjoy a few choice scenes, I really quite liked the whole package much, much better - even if the ending is kind of ridiculous.  And, man, yeah, no wonder they can't keep Avengers toys on the shelf.

Watching the big, exciting fight scene at the end, I'm now in total awe of the package Joss Whedon put together.  I mean, it's about as perfect a super-hero-y playscape, threat, etc.. as you're going to find, and then the camera work and FX just really carry you through that whole terrific, chaotic cityscape.

I know I'm telling you guys something you already know, but by that point the last time I saw the movie, I was sort of ready for the conclusion, and everything between me and our villain stowed safely away felt a bit like a semi-welcome delay before we could all file out.  Not sulking about Cap's second-tier status kind of set my mind at ease, as did enjoying a lot of what Mark Ruffalo was up to in every shot where he appeared as either Banner or Hulk.  And, yeah, as much as a Planet Hulk movie sounds boss as hell, I'd like a Ruffalo-as-Hulk movie first.

Anyway, that's this evening's geek-out.

I'm pretty jazzed about Iron Man 3, and the in-production Cap and Thor flicks.  And word is that fricking Rocket Raccoon is coming to the big screen in a Guardians of the Galaxy movie.  Rocket Raccoon is getting a movie before The Flash, Shazam, Wonder Woman, Aquaman...

Go to hell, DC.

Now, if I can get a Black Panther movie, I might relax a little.

Signal Watches: Punisher - War Zone

So, yeah.

I'm, at best, a casual reader of The Punisher comics from Marvel.  Back in the 80's, when Punisher was sort of relevant in the wake of a few Deathwish movies (clearly the idea behind the character came from Bronson), and Bernhard Goetz had opened fire on a NYC Subway, I recall names like Mike Zeck, Klaus Janson and a young Jim Lee working on Punisher stuff.

I've tried various Punisher comics over the years, but it's a book that, when I'm not reading it, I don't really miss.  Watching someone stone cold execute people because they're "mobsters" or "criminals" - gets kind of stale after a while.  Yes, I started reading Ennis's run, and enjoyed it.  I intended to read it as trades, and just never got around to it.  I am reading Rucka's stuff, and it's good, solid, Rucka - if a bit spot on the nose "oh, of course he has a broken female protagonist" Rucka, but that doesn't mean its not worth checking out.

Signal Reads: The Green Eagle Score (a Parker Novel)

This is what I like about a Parker novel.  On Saturday I had a rainy day, and while I'd started the book at the doctor's office on Tuesday (I'm fine.  Just getting the annual inspection.), I read all but those first 23 pages today.

Like other Parker novels, it's difficult to imagine the heist pulled off in the modern era of paranoid security, electric systems everywhere, etc...  But people don't really change all that much, and so the stories still work very, very well.

Since The Jugger - but really, starting with The Score, Stark wisely began fanning out his narrative attention a bit more on the other characters in the books.  Probably the closest I'd point to in something you'd be immediately familiar is some of the feel of the "let's check in with our villain" of the Ocean's 11 franchise.  The characters don't have to be right next to Parker throughout the novel - the narrative eye wanders and gives us some background on some of these characters, some of whom then proceed to die just a few pages later and without much attention paid to their fate.

It's an interesting narrative trick as you definitely get a complete picture of the story, but you also know that Stark's narrative in invested in the story and isn't going to get sentimental about  a character just because we spent two or three pages with that person, learning their inner thoughts.

The Green Eagle Score is about the payroll heist of an Air Force base in upstate New York.  Parker leaves Claire, whom he picked up in the last book, The Rare Coin Score, in Puerto Rico, to chase down a haul put in front of him by an old comrade whose ex-wife is shacked up with a clerk in the finance office on the base.

The book takes a telegraphed but no-less fascinating left turn into the usual complications of a Parker heist, but it's so wildly different from the complications of The Seventh or even The Handle, that it doesn't feel like old hat, even in the 10th Parker novel.

Good, fun read.

Here's a Random Thing I Did: Glenn Miller Orchestra in Austin

Lately a coffeehouse not so far from my house expanded into the next retail space over and opened the Strange Brew Lounge.  Jason pointed out the new venue to me, and a few weeks back I was driving to work and noticed they claimed they had the Glenn Miller Orchestra coming.

You might find yourself saying: "But, The League, Glenn Miller died in 1944!"
Indeed he did.

and thus, I payed to see an empty stage

But the orchestra played on!

The Glenn Miller Orchestra still plays around the country, with an all new line-up that probably refreshes quite frequently as they're on the road 48 weeks per year.

My pal Julia said she was interested, so we got us a pair of tickets, and we attended the 6:00 PM show.  (Seriously, they started promptly at 6:00.  It was crazy town.).

The venue is pretty great.  It's really intended for the singer/ songwriter scene Austin cultivates, but apparently the uncle of the owners of Strange Brew was once did arrangements for the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and so they decided to take a risk and book the band.

New Adventures of Superman Series: Did DC win back the rights to Superman's Red Underpants?

I sort of don't know what to make of the (I'm calling it unsubstantiated) news that DC is launching a new web comic called The Adventures of Superman that will eventually be collected.  Somehow.  Whatever.

The things I care about are as follows:

1.  There's a lot here to suggest that most of the changes made to Superman in the New 52 were due to the Siegel/ Shuster heir lawsuit.  Things were looking pretty bad for DC for a while, which would have meant anything from Action Comics #1 that was ownable would now be the property of the creators.  That included red trunks on Superman and a girl reporter as a love interest.*

A short while ago, DC seems to have won the lawsuit (the heirs should still be receiving royalties, which is, I suppose, something...), which would mean DC can continue to exploit their trademark.  I mean, make great Superman comics in the popular tradition.

Kirby Day - Let's Talk Too Much about Mister Miracle

I guess today is the 19th Anniversary of Jack Kirby's passing.

I've attached an image of a cover to an issue of Mister Miracle, a comic I've alluded to over the years, and which I hold close to my heart.  If you've never read the Kirby Fourth World material, I can only tell you: man, you are missing out on one wild ride.

Of course, mostly, we talk about the Man of Steel around here, but as a concept, ideal and character, the themes of Superman's mythology differ greatly from those of anything else in the Fourth World books, and especially Mister Miracle, an interesting conundrum when Kirby originated so much of the Fourth World while including Superman and using metropolis as a backdrop.  If the underlying theme of Superman, as a character and mythology, exemplifies using the gifts bestowed upon you for the betterment of the world, Mister Miracle is the hope for escape from the seemingly inescapable and an avatar for the promise of freedom - especially by one's own hand.  Whether it's the X-Pit or a runaway rocketsled, Scott Free always, always lands on his feet with the manacles unlocked and the trap in splinters.

No Post Wednesday - Mad Men S. 6

I was going to write a post for today, but I decided I didn't really care about the topic when I was pretty far along.  So, you get a fake post.

So, here's a cast shot for Mad Men Season 6 - coming April 7th - and a reminder that you will never be at  this party.

If you want a close second, we have a pretty good holiday party at my place every year.

More cast shots.