by A.J. Focht

The Avengers is a less than two months away and each week more information about the film is released. Most recently, SFX Magazine interviewed members of the production including Tom Hiddleston (Loki) and Director Josh Whedon. Hiddleston revealed some of Loki’s motives and Whedon further talked about the troubles with juggling so many heroes. Tickets for the midnight showings of The Avengers go on sale as early as March 16th. Those lucky enough to be near an affiliated AMC theatre can also catch the $40 Avengers Marathon that includes: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor 3D, and Captain America 3D all before the midnight showing of The Avengers 3D.

Potential spoilers have leaked for the upcoming Iron Man 3 project. Playing off the storyline to come in The Avengers, Iron Man 3 will explore the Extremis storyline where Tony Stark uses nano-technology to become one with the Iron Man suit. For Iron Man comic fans, this is not as much of a surprise as the first Iron Man movie followed the Extremis origin and not the original origin. Another interesting thing on the video was confirmation that three Avengers: Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man will all be getting sequels regardless of how The Avengers does, whereas, the future of The Hulk franchise will be dependent on the performance of The Avengers.

There is a lot happening in the world of comics. The first preview for DC’s Free Comic Book Day book has been released. Marvel comics has also released four more cover previews for the upcoming Avengers vs. X-Men. Also, I called it weeks ago and now everyone else is catching on. With the release of the newest Spider-Men teaser, many are coming to the conclusion that Miles Morales and Peter Parker will be meeting in the main Marvel verse.

DC is also making some changes with their comics. April will be the last month for a few of the New 52 that didn’t sell as well such as Static Shock, Hawk & Dove, and Men of War. They are also changing up artists. Starting in May, Detective Comics and Batwoman are getting new artists. Why they are replacing Batwoman’s artist after it was widely voted the Best Art in a Comic in 2011 is beyond me.

DC has also released more information, including covers, for Before Watchmen. The comics go on sale starting in June, but you may want to read the latest comments of Watchmen creator Allen Moore before buying them. In short, Moore is still upset he was screwed out of the rights for Watchmen, and he kindly asks if you do buy Before Watchmen that you stop purchasing all of his other works.

Joss Whedon has three movies coming out this year including The Avengers, but he hasn’t given up the fight for Firefly. In short, he said:

“I keep thinking they’re going to call me, crunch the numbers and say ‘Hey, we can make money from this!’ — but they don’t. I would never rule it out, I love those people. But I can’t just wait by the phone.”

Speaking of watching projects rise from the dead, Warner Bros is talking to Javier Bardem about The Dark Tower movie. Ron Howard still is set to direct the first film, perhaps with Bardem as the Gunslinger. The studio has purchased the script, and it is likely to start shooting in 2013.

The cast from the upcoming Evil Dead remake is nearly full. Most of the roles in the film have been cast and an official premise has been released:

“Levy leads the cast as Mia, a troubled young woman struggling to come to terms with the recent death of her mother. She retreats into a remote cabin to detox from her drug addiction, along with a circle of friends that includes her BFF (Lucas), her estranged brother David (Fernandez), his fiancee (Blackmore), and the gang’s academic pal Eric (Pucci). While in isolation, however, the group discovers the Book of the Dead and unwittingly unleashes malicious supernatural forces.”

Finally, George Takei was so excited when he raised the money for his upcoming Broadway musical Allegiance that he decided to share a little something with all his fans. I leave you with George Takei’s Happy Dance.

by Damon Martin

“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads”
~ Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future

Remember the bit in Back to the Future when Doc Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd) utters that very line and flies away in his souped up DeLorean to take Michael J. Fox and his girlfriend 30 years into the future? He takes them to the year 2015, which is only 3 years from now. In Brown’s version of the future, all the cars had been converted to flying automobiles and we had air gliding skateboards, video walls, and instant pizza.

Were some of those ideas a little crazy? Sure they were. But thinking back 30 years ago, those sorts of things almost seemed possible. I mean look at 1985 compared to 1955 with regards to the advancements in science, technology and innovation.

Now in the year 2012, the United States of America is falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), while our creativity and innovation fails to come up with much of anything new outside of Apple releasing a new iPhone or iPad every year.

Famed astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson believes that a big reason that America is falling behind innovation-wise is due to the lack of funding the government has given over to NASA in the last several years. As our space program has dwindled so has our ability to think outside the box, and reach for the stars both literally and figuratively.

Tyson recently spoke in front of Congress where he made his case for why NASA’s funding is so important:

“During the late 1950’s through the early 1970’s, every few weeks an article, cover story, or headline would extol the ‘city of tomorrow,’ the ‘home of tomorrow,’ the ‘transportation of tomorrow.’ Despite such optimism, that period was one of the gloomiest in US history, with a level of unrest not seen since the Civil War. The Cold War threatened total annihilation, a hot war killed a hundred servicemen each week, the civil rights movement played out daily confrontations, and multiple assassinations and urban riots poisoned the landscape,” said Tyson. “The only people doing much dreaming back then were scientists, engineers and technologists. Their visions of tomorrow derive from their formal training as discoverers. And what inspired them was America’s bold and visible investment on the space frontier.”

Now Tyson points out very specifically that in realistic terms the reason why the US was so dedicated to the space race in the 60s had to do with the Russians’ own dedication to space exploration. The USSR launched the first manned missions into space and the only way the US could beat them was to land a man on the moon. Obviously that was a successful conquest, and, in the period directly following it, most people believed that within a couple of decades we’d surely have landed a man on Mars. Neil Armstrong first stepped foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, yet more than 40 years later our space exploration has essentially landed back on Earth with a dull thud.

‘We stopped dreaming’ said Tyson during an appearance on the popular HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher. “And so I worry, that decisions Congress makes, doesn’t factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow. Tomorrow’s gone. They’re playing for the quarterly report, they’re playing for the next election cycle, and that is mortgaging the actual future of this nation.”

In that same interview, Tyson also points out that the financial bailout ($850 billion) that was completed to save the banks and Wall Street from complete collapse, is more than the entire 50 year tally of the budget for NASA.

The fact is Tyson is right and it’s not even all about landing a man on the moon or exploring the deepest reaches of space, as amazing as all that would be. So much technology was developed as a result of our race to the moon, and that also created work for millions of Americans. Technology launched or invented because of our out of this world endeavors includes Lasik surgery, scratch resistant lenses, cordless power tools, micro-sized electronics, and the list goes on…

But we stopped dreaming.

Even in the early 1980s when I was in elementary school, kids talked all the time about becoming astronauts and wanting to walk on Mars or being the first person to fly to Pluto. I vividly remember our teachers always showing the shuttle launches and how exciting that was to see for a kid growing up. Now our children’s dreams might take them as far as Washington, D.C. or New York City, but rarely do you hear anybody talking about flying to Mars, much less colonizing the moon.

As NASA’s budget continues to fall by the wayside while other programs flourish, and our war machine eats up billions upon billions of dollars, what dreams are we instilling in the next generation? We are obviously a long, long way from landing on Mars or even sending manned missions back into space. We can barely get funding for the technology that will help us peer far enough into space from earth so that we may one day learn the true origins of our universe.

Flying cars? Maybe Doc Brown should have shot for 200 years in the future given the trajectory we’re currently on.

by Fred Topel

Paul Dano has been one of the most interesting actors to watch in the last 10 years. He’s done several hard hitting indie dramas like L.I.E. and The Ballad of Jack and Rose, and that famous “I’ve abandoned my child” scene in There Will Be Blood. His youthful face has kept him in teen comedies, dramas and dramedies, from The Emperor’s Club to The Girl Next Door.

It was probably Little Miss Sunshine that made viewers learn his name. Stuck in the van with Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and little Abigail Breslin, Dano played the older brother who just wanted to join the Air Force. Since then he’s popped up in big studio movies like Knight & Day and Cowboys & Aliens.

Currently, Dano stars in Being Flynn, based on author Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bullshit Night In Suck City. Dano plays Nick, then an aspiring author volunteering at a homeless shelter. His estranged father Jonathan (Robert DeNiro) comes back into his life and even shows up at the homeless shelter. Jonathan Flynn left before his wife Jody (Julianne Moore) killed herself, a suicide Nick believes he caused with a short story he wrote. Guilt, homelessness and even falling into drugs himself makes Nick a very juicy role for Dano.

Dano gave us some time to speak with him when he visited Los Angeles with the film. Though I’ve been watching him for a decade this was actually the first time I met him in my Hollywood career, although for all this time I’ve been saying his name wrong. I learned the correct pronunciation of Dano after hearing all of the Focus Features staff refer to him all day. Good thing I didn’t make a “Book ‘em, Dano” joke because that’s not how it’s pronounced.

Read our exclusive interview with Paul Dano on SuicideGirls.com.

Lylie Suicide in In Bloom

• INTO: Gigs, makeup, travel, I love naughty words in English!
• MAKES ME HAPPY: A guitar solo! Love.
• MAKES ME SAD: Idiots.
• HOBBIES: Dance.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: Music, a bed…

Get to know Lylie better over at SuicideGirls.com!