Scattershot: 4-3-10

The Butler Bulldogs are going to play for the NCAA National Championship Monday. Don't worry if you don't follow college basketball and never heard of them, because there are thousands of fans around the country who live and breath college hoops and have never heard of Butler's Bulldogs. America loves an underdog, and mere 2 months after the Saints captured the hearts of country, Butler looks to do the same Monday night.

The Men Who Stare At Goats is an odd film. Wait, odd is not the right word let me consult my thesaurus for the better adjective..... ah, found it! The Men Who Stare At Goats is an eccentric film. The structure is loose, most of the characters have generally magnanimous motivations and the film's main villain isn't so much a villain as he was a selfish younger man who grew up into successful older man, he dosen't really do anything villainous. It's hard to root for any of the characters, because the ones who are "good" are generally crazy or doing things that make little sense to a sane person. That said, I did enjoy the hour and a half I spent with the film, and recommend it as a rental to anyone who had a passing interest in the concept or stars of the film.

I'm really looking forward to The Losers and Kick-Ass. I don't think anything more needs to be said about Kick-Ass so I want spend a few sentences on the Losers. The cast is awesome, Jeffery Dean Morgan was one of the better parts of last year's brilliant Watchmen, and he gets his own starring role here. Zoe Saldana is 42 kinds of hot and is picking a lot of geek friendly roles that I can really appreciate. I also have developed a strong liking of Chris Evans, the man just owns on screen and deserves all the fame he has coming to him as he is taking on the role of Captain America next.

Which brings me to my last point, the Marvel shared universe of films (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and eventually the Avengers) has had a few developments recently. 1st, obviously Chris Evans was signed on to be Captain America, which sort of completes the "big 3" of the Avengers (Charlie Chaplin as Iron Man, Kirk's Dad from Star Trek as Thor and The Human Torch as Captain America) Not a horrible set of guys to anchor, more or less, 6 films in the next 5 years. 2nd the geek man god Joss Whedon and animation man god Brad Bird have been mentioned as possible Avengers directors, and with Favreau out of the question and Letterier being hobbled by poor reviews of Clash of the Titans, the two new names could be near the top of the short list. I will reserve judgment until they make an announcement, but rest assured these names have a HIGH potential to cause geekgasms so powerful the world over, that the earth's very axis could be shifted... this might be what the Mayans predicted people, Avengers has a tentative 2012! release date!