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 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.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

If I got busted for killing someone I would definitely hire lawyer Bob Levin. I actually have no idea how good of a lawyer he is or what kind of law he practices but he writes about comic books and that’’s enough to base my freedom on.

Anyway, Levin is best known as the author of the book The Pirates and the Mouse about Disney suing a group of underground cartoonists known as the Air Pirates in 1971 about a comic book parody of Disney cartoons in which Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Bucky Bug and others get high, have sex and swear a blue streak.

Now Fantagraphics has compiled a book of essays that Levin wrote for The Comics Journal magazine. These essays include subjects like Chester Brown, S. Clay Wilson, Dori Seda, B.N. Duncan, Justin Green, Maxon Crumb, Crockett Johnson, Roy Lichtenstein, Graham Ingels, Jack Katz, Rory Hayes, and more.

Read our exclusive interview with Bob Levin on SuicideGirls.com.

by Andrew Shaffer

“There’s a very fine line between pleasure and pain, Anastasia. They are two sides of the same coin, one not existing without the other. I can show you how pleasurable pain can be.”

– Christian Grey, the hero of E.L. James’ 50 Shades of Grey

“Patrons at my library are freaking out over 50 Shades of Grey,” Chicago librarian Leah White told me. Since the BDSM erotic romance novel (and its two sequels) is available only as “print-on-demand” through a small Australian publisher (TheWritersCoffeeShop.com), libraries and bookstores have had trouble keeping it in stock. Still, its popularity has steadily grown in the US over the past year, fueled in part by ebooks, which account for more than 90% of the trilogy’s 100,000-plus sales.

According to one Huffington Post blogger in January, the book is so engrossing that “moms are forgetting to pick their kids up from school.” And on March 1, following a salacious story in the New York Post, 50 Shades of Grey finally hit the top spot on Amazon’s Kindle books bestseller list. Today Show host Hoda Kotb even jumped on the bandwagon. “Hello steamy!” she tweeted after downloading the ebook. (This was particularly alarming to me, since my mother watches Hoda and her co-host Kathie Lee Gifford religiously.) Has BDSM gone mainstream?

First, let’s look at the plot of 50 Shades of Grey. Anastasia Steele, a college-age virgin who has never been kissed, meets Christian Grey, the 27-year-old billionaire CEO of Grey’s Enterprises Holdings. Christian is unbelievably handsome with his “tousled hair” and “expensive body wash.” He is also unbelievably kinky. He lost his virginity to a dominatrix when he was fifteen, and, after five years as her submissive, became a dom himself. He used his vast wealth to turn a room in his penthouse apartment into a virtual dungeon, nicknamed the “Red Room of Pain.” And he wants to share his love of BDSM (and fine wine, classical music, and Bruce Springsteen) with Anastasia.

The sex is well-written and James’ portrayal of BDSM is, for the most part, accurate. While Christian and Anastasia start out with “vanilla” sex acts, they gradually add spanking, bondage, riding crops, and object insertion into their repertoire. While such activities are old hat in the erotic fiction genre, they are shockingly explicit for a book being discussed by mainstream media. James teases the reader with an exhaustive list of sex acts and scenarios by way of a D/S contract. “No fisting, you say. Anything else you object to?” Christian asks Anastasia. “Anal intercourse doesn’t exactly float my boat,” she says. He responds, “I’ll agree to [remove] the fisting, but I’d really like to claim your ass, Anastasia.” The author takes the D/S relationship to extremes, however, as Christian attempts to prohibit Anastasia from snacking between meals and dictate how many times a week she works out (four, if you must know). As many readers have wondered, Is this BDSM or Weight Watchers?

The one problem I had with James’ portrayal of BDSM is the use of the lifestyle as “evidence” for how “dark” the hero is. “I’m fifty shades of fucked up, baby,” he tells Anastasia, a reference to both his abusive past and his love of BDSM.

“It wants us to think of Christian’s BDSM as something that’s wrong with him, a symptom of his inner, childhood demons,” Angela Toscano writes on the romance blog Dear Author. “But it also wants us to get off on it. Like teenage girls giggling over pictures of penises, it seems to say of BDSM, ‘Tee he he he! That’s so gross,’ but secretly loving the titillation that comes from viewing the forbidden.” It’s in sharp contrast to the sex-positive portrayal of BDSM as healthy and normal that one finds in most erotic fiction.

Some media outlets have dubbed 50 Shades of Grey “mommy porn” for the book’s almost singular appeal to middle-aged mothers, most of whom have never read an erotic book (let alone one featuring BDSM). “I am not in the habit of reading erotica, but this trilogy makes it seem okay, even for Westchester county,” one reader wrote.

Why this book? If you’re looking for erotic women’s fiction, there’s no shortage of better books out there, something even the most rabid E.L. James fans admit. But part of the book’s appeal is that “everybody is reading it.” A quick glance at Amazon reveals that customers who bought 50 Shades of Grey also bought the Hunger Games trilogy, Heaven is for Real, Steve Jobs’ biography, and novels by Nicholas Sparks and Jodi Picoult. In other words, big, popular books and authors.

Regardless of why it’s popular, 50 Shades of Grey‘s very existence is leading to some interesting, sex-positive discussions. “I found myself explaining what BDSM was to some of the moms at Saturday morning basketball,” publicist Alison Brod told The New York Post. Whether or not this signifies that BDSM (or even erotica) has gone mainstream is up in the air at this point, but it’s not inconceivable that 50 Shades of Grey could potentially do for BDSM what Twilight did for vampires.

Andrew Shaffer is the author of Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love, a book which takes a humorous look at the disastrous love lives of history’s smartest men and women. His writing has appeared in Mental Floss and Maxim. Stephen Colbert, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, once called Shaffer’s atheist Christmas cards “un-American.” Visit him online at EvilReads.com/.

He is currently serializing a Fifty Shades of Grey parody (Fifty-One Shades, because it’s one better) at: EvilReads.com/Fifty-One-Shades

by Daniel Robert Epstein

Recently Matt Damon has been working with such veteran actors as Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro and William Hurt. I wonder if Damon has any concept that in 20 years he will become one of these veteran actors who beats the percentages and does more good films than bad. His stellar work over the years has proved that, and he even makes good popcorn flicks such as The Bourne franchise and Ocean’s 11.

His latest role in Syriana is his most mature performance to date. He plays Bryan Woodman an energy analyst at an energy trading company, living in Geneva with his wife and two children. After a tragedy happens within his family, he uses that as leverage to make a deal with a Middle Eastern Prince.

Read our exclusive interview with Matt Damon on SuicideGirls.com.

by Blogbot

Yes, Mistress: Exploring Sexual Rebellion And Power With Snow Mercy, Koko and Brad Warner…This Sunday (March 11) on SuicideGirls Radio we’ll have our whips and chains handy as we head down into our dungeon to explore BDSM. Professionally curious co-hosts, Nicole Powers (SG’s Managing Editor) and Darrah de jour (SG’s Red, White and Femme columnist and resident sensuality expert), will be joined by dominatrix Snow Mercy and submissive Koko Kitten. SG’s Hardcore Zen columnist Brad Warner will also be on hand to join in the spanking good fun and offer a spiritual perspective on this taboo topic. We’ll cover everything from rope-play to role-play, forced feminization to tease and withhold, and light-pain to something a little more hardcore.

Tune in to the world’s leading naked radio show for two hours of totally awesome tunes and extreme conversation – and don’t let yo momma listen in!

Listen to SG Radio live Sunday night from 10 PM til Midnight on suicidegirlsradio.indie1031.com/

Images: Nena Suicide in Fetish Kitty.

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World…

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see links below – then continue reading after the jump…)

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