The culturalpocalypse is coming. Have you heard of the Madden Curse? If you’re one of the three people who hasn’t, it goes like this. If you’re put on the cover of Madden – the preferred video game of millions and millions of people – you’re fucked. Every single person who adorns the cover generally suffers malaise and awfulness that season. It’s become such a part of my generation’s collective conscious that the inevitable has happened:

EA is looking to exploit it.

In the form of a movie.

The project is being spearheaded by EA Entertainment VP Pat O’Brien, and the storyline seems simply riveting. This wonderful high-concept certain-abortion would “follow a former Madden video game champion who is forced out of retirement just as he finds himself on the corner of the game’s cover.” Whatever will he do then! It’s the sort of insane scenario that Max Barry riffs on in his novel Syrup, which if you haven’t checked it, you should. Shameless whoring of a favorite book of mine. Get some.

The culturalpocalypse? It’s sort of fun.

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Today, Bad Astronomy posted this picture of the Lunar Eclipse by Francis Anderson. What exactly is causing the gorgeous effect? Phil Plait over at BA explains:

[The picture was taken at] a small town located at the bone-chilling latitude of 69 ° north, inside the Arctic Circle. That explains the visibility of the gorgeous aurora borealis, the glow from solar subatomic particles as they slam into our atmosphere. Guided by the Earth’s magnetic field to the geomagnetic poles near the north and south geographic poles, these particles shear electrons off the molecules and atoms of air, causing it to glow.”

Outstanding. For more on the picture, including what is causing those columns of light, hit up Bad Astronomy.

Completely sensationalist title! Ha! I got you! And I just stole your cookie, what the fuck are you going to do? But no seriously. Apparently Emma Stone was on Jay Leno last night, and she dropped the claim that she’s going to be around for a few web-slinging flicks. When Jay asked how long she’ll be keeping her blond hair, she responded “There’s a few Spidermen, so I may have to keep it for a couple of years.”

Wut!

Every Spider-Man dude knows that Gwen bites the fucking bullet hard. It’s one of the multitude of reasons that Parker is a whiny bitch. But! Could they be changing something? Is Gwen going to live? Sure, her surviving one film doesn’t mean she isn’t going to die eventually. However, let’s dare to dream. I’d be very excited if they decided to keep Gwen as Parker’s main squeeze.

Not only have we done the whole courting of Mary Jane, but I’m going to hit you guys with something: I fucking hate Mary Jane. Yeah, I know she symbolizes the impossibility that the average nerd can’t attain. What is more of an accomplishment than the dweeb acquiring the supermodel who gets him?

Not much.

But I’ve always preferred Stacy to MJ, and if this means she’ll be keeping a pulse for the foreseeable future, then good.

Hello there, dear readers. Welcome again to Cage Match, the innernet’s only column solely concerned with Nicolas Cage. We want what you want: to be able to catch up with Cage without having to scour the world wide bowels of information. So, you’re welcome.

This week there’s some new Drive Angry goods: an international trailer and an interview with director Patrick Lussier. There’s also some info on Cage’s planned trip to India and a Blu-Ray release date for a classic early Cage flick.

I apologize for the lack of insight and fart jokes this week, we here at Cage Match HQ are caught up in the holiday rush and have to catch a plane to the Garden State in a little bit. Here’s hoping your holidays are filled with family, friends, laughs, and CAGE!

UK International Drive Angry Trailer; Get Behind Nic Cage, Devil

Put your jealousy caps on, you stinking limeys, Summit Entertainment has dropped the UK International trailer for Drive Angry. It seems we not only won our independence from your taxing, pig King George III, we also won the privilege of seeing Nicolas Cage movies two weeks before you redcoats.

I’m pretty stoked for this one. It looks balls-out ridiculous and for chrissakes it’s the first time Nic Cage is in 3D. Now I care about 3D.

Drive Angry Director Talks Drive Angry

In an interview with MovieFone, director Patrick Lussier talks about collaborating with Cage, his reboot of the Hellraiser series, and what it’s like to destroy s many classic cars. On the subject of Cage, Lussier says:

One of the key things for Nic when we were talking about the movie was specifically how he’d play stricter in terms of the tone of the character. Working within that framework, which he loved — he said he’d never played a character that was this hard and this cold and this relentless. And even within that, Nic found the humanity of the character and brought it out; even more-so than on the page. He really found the human charm of this murderer that you root for and made him positively likeable, which was really key in bringing him to the story.

India Is About to Get Awesome

The Times of India reports that Cage is heading to India in January to promote The Season of the Witch. India is a huge market that remains relatively untapped by Hollywood. Cage’s visit is an attempt to begin chipping away at that market. There’s already a language barrier, so I’m sure Cage spouting off his usual esoteric musings mixed with samurai philosophy is bound to blow the roof off India.

Moonstruck Coming to Blu-Ray in February 2011

Now you can relieve the amazing “I lost my hand” in gorgeous Blu-Ray. The classic Cage/Cher collabo from 1987 is coming to Blu-Ray on Feb. 15, 2011.

[DEFEAT. is Rendar Frankenstein’s truest attempt at fiction.   Presented in weekly episodes, the novella tells the tale of Daryl Millar – a hero who dies at the intersection of pop culture, science-fiction, war epic, and fantasy]

The car stopped just long enough for Daryl to explode out of its passenger door. As eager as he was to get into school with enough time to return 8-Bit’s copy of The Dark Knight Falls, Daryl’s mother was twice as eager to see Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel interview whoever. And so the Volvo screeched, peeling out just as Mrs. Millar’s foot told it to.

This provided the man in the gray trench coat the voyeuristic advantage that had eluded him the previous morning. The man got an unencumbered look at the accelerating teen. And since Daryl had no clue that he was being watched, the man in the trench coat afforded himself the luxury of peeking over the top of the sunglasses that barely rested on the tip of his nose. “Yes,” he muttered to himself in near-disbelief, “this is exactly right. It’s so surreal. No, no, that’s not it. Just real.”

From the trench coat a ratty spiral bound journal was removed by a slightly trembling hand. The spy, now seemingly aware that others may question his lurking, scribbled his notes quickly. Returning the journal to the safety of his oversized coat, he snuck behind the bushes and out of the scene.

At the same time, 8-Bit was admiring the graffiti and clever bits of vandalism adorning the inside of his locker.

Where’s the beef?
Charlotte gives good head
Led Zep rokks!

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The best thing about Arkham Asylum was the continuous ass-whupping you got to put onto foes. Batman is a goddamn Jedi when it comes to fighting street rats and ruffians. It’s straight-up the way it should be. These Arkham City screens reassure me that it’s going to be positively more of the same in the sequel I’m sweating. There’s a screen where Wayne is administering a fucking steel door to some douchebag’s sternum. He’s the thunderous bastard everyone fears. For good reason.

Hit the jump for the screens.

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Behold! The Lunar Eclipse as captured from space shuttle Discovery. Pretty.

Via.

Happy holidays, ya’ll! May the deity of your choice smile upon you. May your stockings be stuffed. This is Variant Covers, where I run down what comic books I’m checking out this week. ‘Tis the season for some funny books. Especially with the snow, wind, and overall suckitude of the tangible environment these days in my neck of the woods.

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Neonomicon #3
Alan Moore’s Lovecraftian nightmare conjured into reality continues this week with the third issue. The phrase “mind fuck” is bandied about these days to the point of uselessness. But friends, I can’t resist. This comic book is a mind fuck of the strongest order.

Last issue saw a bathhouse orgy rape scene turn into the grandest of conjurations to summon some sort of reptilian creature seeking a fucking. I can’t remember a comic book so creepy that it gave me the chills. But Moore is crazy like a fox, and has chosen this venue to pontificate on the ability to write reality as a narrative, and other rather weighty topics. It’s the only comic that could be featured in a graduate course, and also be used to get fetish pornography thrown into a whole new venue.

Definitely not for everyone. But if you’re into horror, steam house orgies, or meditations on narrative, I think you’ll enjoyed this shit. As much as you’ll be horrified. You don’t see mythical creature cocks ejaculating into a woman’s mouth and not be changed. Just a little. (Lot.)

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Not that I ever doubted the Call of Duty juggernaut, but I’m still fucking impressed. Today, Activision announced that Black Ops has surpassed one-billion dollars in worldwide sales. Jesus Lord. That’s a lot of motherfuckers playing, which is why it makes sense that   to this date “more than 600 million hours have been logged.”

Shit is selling at an impressive clip, outpacing last year’s Modern Warfare 2. This is undoubtedly awesome news to Treyarch fanboy and fangirl assholes, who will assuredly be parlaying this information into forthcoming message board arguments.

Activision Devil Guru Bobby Kotick was absolutely stroking his cock in virgin blood when he commented:

“In all of entertainment, only Call of Duty and “Avatar” have ever achieved the billion dollar revenue milestone this quickly. This is a tribute to the global appeal of the  Call of Duty franchise, the exceptional talent at Treyarch and the hundreds of extraordinary people across our many Call of Duty studios including Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer that work tirelessly on the franchise.  Our ability to provide the most compelling, immersive  entertainment experience, and enhance it with regular, recurring content that delivers hundreds of hours of audience value, has allowed Call of Duty to continue to set sales and usage records.”

Can’t stop. Won’t stop. Call of Duty don’t quit!

Today at a press conference hosted at Midtown Comics in New York City, Marvel unveiled their next event. Titled Fear Itself,   the event is going to be broken into a seven issue miniseries, starting in April. The creative gurus behind it? Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen. Yeah kid, now we’re playing with power. I’ve waited a long time for Fraction to get dealt an event, and it seems like I’m getting a Christmas gift early. Booyah! And Stuart Immonen? I’ve dug his artwork since finding him on Ellis’ Nextwave.

The Premise!
The story itself revolves around eight characters that Fraction plans on putting up against the God of Fear. This will also tie into some “secret at the heart of the Marvel Universe that had been hidden for centuries. Its revealing will ‘unleash something unspeakable, something that has been clamped down for centuries that will flourish and cast its shadow across the world.'” What would an event be without some sort of hidden secret or grand reveal?

Nothing!

If you want to enjoy events, you have to accept the tropes. I do.

Hit the jump for a Fraction and Quesada spouting off on the event, as well as some gorgeous promo artwork.

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