hitrecordjoe:

nathanjohnson:

Bruce Willis speaks (highly!) about Looper and Mr. RCJohnso in this month’s Esquire

(Willis) really wants to talk about Looper, the tale of a time-traveling corporate assassin sent back in time to meet, for lack of a better word (and avoiding a spoiler), his maker. “It’s better than anything I’ve ever done…Rian did an amazing thing. He conceived an original story. He wrote it, sold it, stuck with it, directed it, and finished it,” Willis says. “That’s just tough to do in this town. Someone always weasels into the process. That didn’t happen here. And if he never did anything else except that Herculean effort, he’d have made it in the business. Amazing.

“It’s more than an original story. It’s a story people are going to talk about, and see twice. And argue about. I was arguing with myself about the story when I read it the first time. That’s all Rian Johnson, beginning to end. Great, great director.”

Wow! :oD

Another four months of waiting…AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

theumbrellaseller:

Okay can I talk about this for a sec? No? Tough, because I’m gonna go ahead and do it anyway. Because this little exchange was so indicative of their relationship that I wanted to die.

We already know that without the armor, Tony sees himself as nothing. “Iron Man yes, Tony Stark not recommended”, right? There’s more than a touch of bitterness when he throws that exchange back at Coulson in his first scene. We know about his issues with his father, we know about his drinking, we know that he watched a man sacrifice his life in a cave in the Middle East so that he, Tony, could live.

Steve doesn’t. And yet almost by accident, he finds Tony’s weak spot, sticks in a knife, and twists. Steve’s trying to shame him, trying to hold Tony accountable for actions that he, as a soldier, sees as reckless and irrresponsible— he’s already furious with Tony for needling Banner, which potentially endangered the lives of everyone on the ship (He can’t know, of course, that Tony recognises something in Banner, a control on his inner demons that he can only envy; Tony knows what it’s like to have a monster inside of him that he can barely contain) and Tony’s devil-may-care attitude is the final straw. Steve sees right through Tony in a way few people do; but not deep enough, no, because if he could fathom just how deep Tony’s scars go (and if he wasn’t being influenced by Loki’s sceptre, just behind him) he wouldn’t have said those things.

Because hey, Steve is lashing out here. You saw him in the gym; all that coiled rage, the flashbacks, the way he destroyed that punching bag. Steve’s in as much pain as Tony right now. Not that anyone’s interested. They just want him to put on the suit and be glad they won the war. Tony’s comments earlier about Steve being “not of use” made their mark. Steve already feels outdated and useless. Tony represents everything Steve doesn’t understand about the new century, everything he hates; he’s an unreliable jumble of technology, ego and pop culture references Steve doesn’t understand. Oh, and Tony used to make weapons. Big weapons. How d’you think Steve felt when someone filled him in on the advances in warfare that happened while he was asleep?

And Tony? He’s having his insecurities thrown back at him by a living legend, by the man his father admired above all others; a man Howard Stark spent years digging through the ice for when he should have been caring for his son. Steve is talking, but I’m pretty sure Tony’s hearing his father.

“The only thing you fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play.”

Half of that sentence is true. Tony does fight for himself; he fights to redeem himself every day, not because of the body count his weapons have amassed (Natasha’s not the only one with red in her ledger) but because he doesn’t see himself as worthy of anything. Of the suit, of the few friends he has, of his money, of his life. He fights every day to prove to himself that he deserves to exist. And that is why he would make the sacrifice play. In a heartbeat. If he doesn’t deserve to be here, it’s only right he die for someone who does. And Steve just told him “yeah, you’re right, you don’t deserve to be here. I know guys worth ten of you, and they’re dead, and you’re alive.”

It’s awful, really, how much these two men are capable of hurting each other.

And yet. Underneath the barbs and the anger and the hurt, this exchange shows exactly why they work so well together.

“…to lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

“I think I would just cut the wire.”

“Always a way out.”

That. That right there. Tony is a master at thinking on his feet, at improvisation, at taking risks that tend to pay off. He’s brilliant, but volatile. And Steve is strategic, methodical, noble almost to a fault. Tony could come up with solutions Steve would never even dream of, and vice versa; when Tony spends time hacking into SHIELD’s servers, Steve investigates on foot. They are exact opposites, in personality and skill, and that’s why they’re the unofficial leaders of the Avengers. The differences that drive them apart in this scene are what’s going to make them unstoppable later on. Because they’re not half as good at anything as when they’re doing it next to each other.

Great analysis on the exchange between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark.

loopermovie:

Teaser poster (via our friends at /Film)

Looper Teaser Poster..another 6 days of waiting for the trailer.

brysonisgood:

lostgrrrls:

mohandasgandhi:

frombaghdadwithlove:

machistado:

1. You’ve Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond
The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.

2. Diamonds are Priced Well Above Their Value
The De Beers cartel has systematically held diamond prices at levels far greater than their abundance would generate under anything even remotely resembling perfect competition. All diamonds not already under its control are bought by the cartel, and then the De Beers cartel carefully managed world diamond supply in order to keep prices steadily high.

3. Diamonds Have No Resale or Investment Value
Any diamond that you buy or receive will indeed be yours forever: De Beers™ advertising deliberately brain-washed women not to sell; the steady price is a tool to prevent speculation in diamonds; and no dealer will buy a diamond from you. You can only sell it at a diamond purchasing center or a pawn shop where you will receive a tiny fraction of its original “value.”

4. Diamond Miners are Disproportionately Exposed to HIV/AIDS
Many diamond mining camps enforce all-male, no-family rules. Men contract HIV/AIDS from camp sex-workers, while women married to miners have no access to employment, no income outside of their husbands and no bargaining power for negotiating safe sex, and thus are at extremely high risk of contracting HIV.

5. Open-Pit Diamond Mines Pose Environmental Threats
Diamond mines are open pits where salts, heavy minerals, organisms, oil, and chemicals from mining equipment freely leach into ground-water, endangering people in nearby mining camps and villages, as well as downstream plants and animals.

6. Diamond Mine-Owners Violate Indigenous People’s Rights
Diamond mines in Australia, Canada, India and many countries in Africa are situated on lands traditionally associated with indigenous peoples. Many of these communities have been displaced, while others remain, often at great cost to their health, livelihoods and traditional cultures.

7. Slave Laborers Cut and Polish Diamonds
More than one-half of the world’s diamonds are processed in India where many of the cutters and polishers are bonded child laborers. Bonded children work to pay off the debts of their relatives, often unsuccessfully. When they reach adulthood their debt is passed on to their younger siblings or to their own children.

8. Conflict Diamonds Fund Civil Wars in Africa
There is no reliable way to insure that your diamond was not mined or stolen by government or rebel military forces in order to finance civil conflict. Conflict diamonds are traded either for guns or for cash to pay and feed soldiers.

9. Diamond Wars are Fought Using Child Warriors
Many diamond producing governments and rebel forces use children as soldiers, laborers in military camps, and sex slaves. Child soldiers are given drugs to overcome their fear and reluctance to participate in atrocities.

10. Small Arms Trade is Intimately Related to Diamond Smuggling
Illicit diamonds inflame the clandestine trade of small arms. There are 500 billion small arms in the world today which are used to kill 500,000 people annually, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants.

Diamonds are the worst.

My mother is actually disappointed in me for not wanting a diamond ring. 

All of my relatives think there’s something wrong with me and that I’m being “selfish.” Selfish.

I’ve posted this before, but posting again as a reminder.

And gold? Also pretty terrible.

Two things all potential partners have to know about me: I do not do Valentine’s Day (not even a little) and I do not do jewelry (meaning the traditional precious-stones-in-precious-metals kind).

smellslikecomics:

Having been a comics fan and reader for 14 years it’s always hard to make the decision to drop titles. However, with the current price of comics it’s gotten to the point where I have to. Or, rather, the price of comics in AUSTRALIA has meant that I have to drop titles.

While I realise that my…

I’ve been out of the monthly comics buying spree for the last three years since mid 2009 and faced a similar dilemma. My friend Joe Douglas reflects on his decision to move from singles to trades.

Yeah, I had registered last year to follow few pages and recently decided to start posting. Your postings also helped with the additional motivation.

lil-b:

Introducing our new game called:

“Don’t Be A Di*k During Meals With Friends.”

The first person to crack and look at their phone picks up the check.

Our (initial) purpose of the game was to get everyone off the phones free from twitter/fb/texting and to encourage conversations.

Rules:

1) The game starts after everyone has ordered.

2) Everybody places their phone on the table face down.

3) The first person to flip over their phone loses the game.

4) Loser of the game pays for the bill.

5) If the bill comes before anyone has flipped over their phone everybody is declared a winner and pays for their own meal.

Variations/house rules:

-Starting the game after everyone is seated.

-In the rare event that multiple people flip their phones simultaneously, the bill is split between said players.

- Feel free to invoke penalties/strikes systems.

Notes:

- No touching or messing with anybody else’s phones.

- You don’t have to stack the phones. This was done for picture taking purposes.

- I realize I should perhaps think of a different name for this awesome game. Because I don’t mean to imply that everyone who checks their phone during meals is a di*k.

- I recommend not being such a stickler or hardass on people about the rules and even initiation of the game. Basic premise is to just get people open to the idea of staying active and attentive to one another. But if someone has to take a call; they have to take a call =).

- Have fun! It’s really more of a fun concept in this new age high tech life of ours. Conversation is the spice of life.

Yesterday I finally caught up to the last few episodes of ThunderCats. It was a really good finale for season 1, looking forward to season 2. Later at night I had a dream that I was discussing the classic episodes of the original ThunderCats series with my friends Krishna and Ananth. And then I had another dream where I had bought this awesome Cats Lair Statue by Icon Heroes and I was doing a video review of the statue. I have to get this piece later this year.