Remember your gender roles, kids! Women are busy being spread-eagle, and sexualized. Men? We walk through fucking fire! That’s what this fan art by Protsenko Pavel teaches us. Just about affirms every gender role we’re used to. The saddest part? I still enjoy it. I am an unprincipled man, full of bullshit.

The artwork itself is sexy.

Hit the jump for space-babes, and totally tough alien dudes.

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Is there a 2011 movie I’m more excited about than Rian Johnson’s Looper? No, dummy. Johnson’s one of the most original and exciting new directors to come along in years. His 2006 debut Brick is infinitely rewatchable and quickly became one of my favorite movies. 2008’s Brothers Bloom was a hit or miss with critics, but I loved it. Johnson’s a master of toying with genre and as a HUGE noir/crime/con movie fan I can appreciate anyone who comes at it fresh and original. With his first two films he covered the hardboiled detective film and the con film. With Looper, my man’s going sci-fi.

Looper is a “dark, violent sci-fi thriller revolving around time travel.” Paul Dano joins Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a Looper, a “low-level hitmen paid to murder people sent back from the future by organized crime bosses.” (via Playlist) Also signed on for the film is Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt. The addition of Dano pleases me. Anyon who can go toe-to-toe with Daniel Day Lewis needs to be in more awesome movies.

Shooting begins early next year in Louisiana so don’t expect to see Looper in theaters until late next year. Can’t f’ing wait.

Welcome aboard Omega-Level — the world’s most feared nerdcore pirate ship! We’re currently raiding the Pop Culture Seas! To stomach these turbulent waters, it’s advisable to consume caffeine and discuss the nonsense that your coworkers/family members/probation officers just don’t get. That’s why we’re here.

ALL HANDS ON DECK! Announcements are underway!

PATRICK COOPER
Astute passengers of Omega-Level have no doubt noticed that there is a third contributor amongst our ranks. Who is this enigmatic fellow? Well, if the Brothers Omega are the co-captains of the vessel, Mr. Cooper is the official first mate. In addition to posting whatever the hell he wants (we scoff in the face of structure), Patrick is gracing us with two weekly features: Cage Match and Omega Sinema.

Unless you’re a total lamebrain, you are going to love him.

RENDAR FRANKENSTEIN
Just in case you’re wondering, I’m not new to OL. I am, in fact, the man/creature/invention formerly known as P-Bones Krueger. Why am I now R. Frankenstein? Is this new moniker actually necessary? Isn’t it ridiculous that I have assumed yet another identity?

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll ask Superman…or Clark Kent…or Kal-El.

Ha, that’s a twist to the secret identity trope that even Bill missed.

THE HOLIDAYS
Don’t worry about OL closing up shop during the holiday season. We believe that everyone should celebrate the holidays any way they see fit. For us, it means hanging with friends, eating too much food, and discussing the malarkey (as always). So if you’re feeling slightly subversive, feel free to stop by and revel!

At the top of my holiday to-do list: watch Black Santa’s Revenge:

[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]

When I started reading comics in the early 1990s, I was diehard fan of the X-Men. Was it because of the riveting dichotomy of Charles Xavier and Magneto, analogues for the contrasting perspectives of civil rights activists Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X? Or was it the fact that the mutants of the Marvel Universe represented the repressed others of society, forced to live under conditions not dissimilar to our own rampant homophobia? Or could it be the introduction of new characters like Gambit?

Fugg that noise, bub. I loved the X-Men because of Wolverine.

Even as a four-year in ratty sweatpants and a mustard-stained B.U.M. shirt, I understood the wonder of Weapon X. He’s a mysterious, beer-guzzlin’ Canadian who beats ass as he sees fit but secretly has a heart of gold. His costume is bright yellow and blue, with some seriously sick earflaps. And if you ever need someone to clear out a room of bad-guys, just cheese him off enough and let him do his thing.

Unfortunately, I feel as though Wolverine’s become a bit watered down over the last few years. In the comics world, Logan’s been given a lame-ass son and an unnecessary origin. In the larger world of pop culture, a Wolverine received a cash-grab origins flick. The truly great additions to this Canuck’s mythos have been few and far between.

But I think Wolverine: The Best There Is gives the character his just due.

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Come, literate ones. Fuck, come illiterate ones. Follow the trail of candy into my haven of polygons and cel-shading. This is Press Start!, the column where I spit five fucking happenings in the video game world from the past week into your welcoming mouth. Your job, true believers, is to thenby (thenby should really be a word) spit your five into my mouth. Liquids will be exchanged. Lives altered. Or you can just continue to the next post. I wouldn’t fucking blame you.

Drink deep your infinity juice, and let’s rock.

—-

#1: US Air Force Tethers Together 1,760 To Create Supercomputer.
Almost a year ago, it was announced that the US Air Force purchased a shit load of PlayStation 3s. While it wasn’t openly acknowledged by many people at the time, I knew something right there, that day. The US Air Force had clearly never seen one of the multitude of movies nor read any of the endless books that depict one thing: the great robotic uprising of year 20XX. This week, we got a look at some of the specifications at this huge motherfuckin’ Franke-Computer that the Air Force has created. I mean, Christ, these people clearly haven’t even read Frankenstein. Get cultured, yo.

This Monstrous Plasti-Vomit Pile of Computing Power is the thirty-third largest computer in the world. The son of a bitch contains “168 separate graphical processing units and 84 coordinating servers.” That’s a lot. The Air Force is also calling it the fastest interactive computer in the entire Defense Department.

Well then! Tax payer money at work. I’m all for it. If the robotic uprising has gone beyond conjecture, why not go out by tethering a bunch of PlayStation 3s together? Once their sentience becomes obvious, I can be found in my basement, strung out and waiting for death.

So pretty much like any other night.

—-

#2: Gaming Villain Billy Mitchell, Gets Honored In New Game.
If I had Billy Mitchell’s mullet, or his beard, or his gaming prowess, it wouldn’t have taken me twenty-five years to lose my virginity. But alas. I was borne from a barren womb, into a cold world. Inculcated with only the desire to consume grease-flesh and play video games. And so unlike Billy Mitchell, I plod the tedious life of another middle class white American. Not the worst, but certainly not the best.

More important this week, if I was Billy Mitchell, I would be celebrating getting honored in a fucking video game. If you don’t know who Billy Mitchell is, let me help you. Ultimate bad ass gaming villain, who often but not always holds the world record in the original Donkey Kong arcade game. Currently he has been felled by do-gooder and decent guy Steve Wiebe. But Stevey don’t got something Billy does.

An appearance in the recently released Donkey Kong Country Returns. Yessir, Billy got a shout-out in the new DK game for the Wii. Should you be rocking out all simian and shit in world 3-2, keep an eye on the rubble. Smashed rather gloriously into it is the pattern of Billy Mitchell’s righteous American Flag tie.

A true moment of awesomeness, which pays homage to a man who is clearly an American hero.

Oh Billy Mitchell, if I were only you.

—-

#3: Xbox Modder Facing Trial Gets Unlikely Support. From The Judge.
Do you roll with a posse? ‘Cause if you don’t, you sure need to. You say you’re just a geek? Naw son, a posse can still come in handy. What if you’re at Gamestop, and you come across a near mint (condition) copy of Final Fantasy Tactics? And while you’re busy tweeting about how fucking awesome! it is to find, someone else ganks it? That’s where your boy Wheezy F. WoW rolls up and pops them with a bag full of Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers across the grill.

Matthew Crippen can speak to all the importance of having a posse. Crippen was on trial this week for the illegal modification of Xboxes, when he found himself being defended by an unlikely source: the fucking judge presiding over the case. That’s a legit b-boy.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez opened up the hearing (is it a hearing? I’m an ignorant asshole when it comes to the law) by lighting up the prosecution for a variety of things. Most prominently? Two key prosecution witnesses had broken the law:

One is Entertainment Software Association investigator Tony Rosario, who secretly video-recorded defendant Matthew Crippen allegedly performing the Xbox mod in Crippen’s Los Angeles suburban house. The defense argues that making the recording  violates California privacy law. The other witness is Microsoft security employee Ken McGrail, who analyzed the two consoles Crippen allegedly altered. McGrail  admitted that he himself had modded Xboxes in college.

Well good god damn! After the prosecution took a thirty minute verbal DDT from the judge, the court recessed. And today? Today the case was dismissed. Behold the power of the posse.

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Well, we didn’t find any sort of sweet-ass bacteria on Titan. Son of a bitch. What was found by Dr. Felisa Wolfe-Simon is life previously thought impossible. It was snagged within Mono Lake in Menlo Park, California.

What exactly do you mean?

Phosphorus, along with hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur, make up the fundamental building blocks of life as we know it.

Okay, if you say so! God, it’s been a long time since my high school science classes. If you can’t psychoanalyze it for imagined tropes, I’m useless. So, go on!

Wolfe-Simon has discovered a bacteria that swaps out phosphorus with arsenic. The discovery that a life form can be comprised of something other than the six fundamental building blocks of life changes everything.

Oh shit! Now that is interesting. What exactly does this mean in the long run? And why is NASA involved?

For Astrobiology, the study of life elsewhere in the universe, the impact of this discovery is tremendous. For years astrobiologists have been basing the potential for alien worlds to support life on the presence of the fundamental building blocks of life. Now that we know they aren’t as fundamental as we first thought, the search will have to change.

Well then! Pretty fucking rockin’, no? It opens up the parameters for our searches for life off-planet! Now go out and find that shit, people! I’m still a little bit disappointed. I was really hoping for the planet that supported life, whose only inhabitants were the other-worldly equivalent of Swedish supermodels. Male and female, of course. Where the lakes were comprised of Diet Mountain Dew.

But this? This is still pretty cool.

Via.

Views From The Space-Ship, aka Desktop Tuesdays, aka Desktop Thursdays is a (theoretically) weekly column where I show you my worlds. Share your own in the comments section!

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This is going to be a fucking confluence of absurdity. We got Uwe Boll, perhaps the best filmmaker ever. We have Dolph Lundgren, who is not only that Goddamn Communist Pig from Rocky IV, but also a fucking wizard chemical engineer. Look that shit up, I ain’t stunting. And these two motherfuckers are teaming up to bring us probably the best movie that is also the worst movie you can ever imagine. Name of the King 2, Boll’s second movie based off of the Dungeon Siege video games.

This is fucking awesome.

Let’s kick it to Mr. Lundgren as he spits about what this shit is all about:

“I play an ex-middle ages war veteran who gets fucked up but he gets pulled into some sort of medieval power struggle, kind of gets a bit of a redemption for all his pains in service,” Lundgren said in a recent radio interview. “It’s a role I just wanted to play.”

“They say he was basically sent into the future, he’s the son of Jason Statham, and he was sent into the future, brought up in an orphanage, because the parents felt that they would all die,” he said. “So he is basically the last survivor of the kingdom of Ehb so he should bring the kingdom back in charge.”

How does he get sent into the future? Well, he’s only attacked by ninjas one night and sent through a fucking vortex in time. I’m ready for this shit.

While everyone is busy sweating Batman rumors, I’ll watch Baby Inception on repeat. You can’t script the amazing pay-off at the end.

Well, we saw this shit coming, didn’t we? I always imagined that Nolan would only be up for three Batman flicks. He’d complete the storyline he wanted to tell, throw the deuces up to everyone, and ride off into the sunset.   This idea of mine was only strengthened by a recent report that Nolan told Bale he’d be like totally done playing Bruce Wayne after the next flick. And then, news came out today where Nolan up and confirmed it.

EW via Slashfilm:

I feel very glad that I’m doing another Batman film. I think it would have been daunting to sit down and write an original script after Inception. I love working within the realm and rules of our Batman world. It’s kind of nice to have someplace to go that I’m super-excited about.

I must say that I’m glad – I’m very, very glad – to be embarking on the last chapter of our Batman saga without any sense of obligation or duty to the studio. They did very well with Inception. So I’m able to go into finishing our story in a very enthusiastic way.

I’m happy as hell with this news. It gives Nolan and the cast to go out in a blaze of glory in their final installment. Wrap everything up, leave their stamp on the universe, and then laugh as they watch other people try and top them. Sure, the franchise ain’t going to die. Way too much money. And maybe Nolan would even have made a better fourth movie than whoever comes next. But as Rendarbones Frankenpepsi says, perhaps there’s something to going out on top. Riding off into the sunset.

Thoughts? Impressions? Hit the comments box.