This started as a comment in a thread, but now it’s a FULL-BLOWN CONTEST.

There are not enough good roles out there for women.

Women who get shit done and are good characters to boot — more than just lycra-clad eye candy with a miscellaneous set of super-assassin skills or whatever.

So, we can talk about it (which is sometimes a good read), or we can DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Here’s the challenge — to everyone — women and men alike. Write an action movie with good female parts in it.

If you win, we will MAKE IT.

Continue reading for rules and more information…

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I present to you as a special peek into my other projects (most of which revolve around a very cool theatre in Greater Boston), an entry into the Providence, Rhode Island 48 hour film project, Monday the 13th, by Nature’s Credit Card Productions (a new team we put together earlier this year). You can watch other 48 hour films at www.48.tv.

Our movie was selected for Best of Providence and won the Audience Award at the Best of Providence showing as well as the “Best Rhose Island movie” for its references and jokes about Providence and the area, which they like to encourage.

To keep you honest, every team in the city gets the same prop, character and line of dialog, and each team picks a genre out of a hat. For us, it was:

Character — A hairdresser named Monty Chaney

Line — “If you see him again, tell me.”

Prop — A pear

Our genre — Horror

Enjoy!

Don’t know what the 48 hour film project is and want to find out? Already know what it is and want to talk about it? Just want to bash my movie? DO SO . . . after the jump –

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Wrather, Fenzel, Sheely and Stokes overthink The Dark Knight.

Download Episode 10 (revised) in AAC Format

UPDATE (2008-08-08): Spoilers related to (of all things) The Wire were inadvertently included in this podcast. They have been removed, and the link above has a spoiler-free edition of the podcast.

Overthinking It Podcast: Get it in iTunes | get it via RSS

Want to join the fun? Check out the LOLjoker contest rules and guidelines.

Submitted by Mlawski

Many, many more entries after the jump!

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[Mark Lee has been responsible for many of the memorable graphics on the site, including another inspired movie poster for Michael Bay's Ouija. We're glad to welcome him as a regular contributor, rock prodigy, and raconteur. —Ed.]

Credit goes to Matt Belinkie for the concept, but from there, my strange powers of Photoshop and the Rhys men’s suave charm did the rest.

“Haha, now I REALLY want to know what The Dark Knight has to do with Schopenhauer.”
-mlawski

Alright. You asked for it.

Mlawski’s own fine post on utilitarianism and The Dark Knight, “The Philosophy of Batman” inspired me — can we delve deeper into the philosophy at the heart of The Dark Knight? I figured I’d go to the well and hash out some German philosophy for this one, partially because I thought it fit, and partially because, like Bruce Wayne, I’m just that crazy.

Now, that time is upon us, and you can decide whether or not I was wise.

Find out about more about the WIll-to-Batman and the Will-to-Joker, after the jump –

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In many cases, a movie’s soundtrack is just another piece of its marketing campaign. But occasionally, a song from a film actually becomes more popular than the film itself. Here are eight you can probably sing from memory (whether you want to admit it or not), from movies you’ve probably never heard of. Consider this a spoiler alert - if you read the name of a film and don’t want the plot described, just skip to the next one.

(NOTE: For a song to qualify, it has to have originally been released as part of a soundtrack. And I decided to stick to movies from the 60’s onward. Otherwise, this list might be all Gershwin and Porter.)

Let’s count ‘em down… more »

I’m currently trying to come up with a plot that ties in every single summer movie this year. It’s tricky - there are a LOT of summer movies.

While I’m cooking that up, here’s a similar mashup from last summer. I’m actually pretty proud of this. Maybe prouder than I should be.

CHAPTER 1

It’s Bart Simpson’s eleventh birthday, and the family is driving to New York so he can tour the offices of Mad Magazine. Along the way, the car has been followed by owls trying to drop envelopes in the windows.

On the Brooklyn Bridge, they’re attacked by witches on broomsticks. The Simpsons don’t know it, but this is a group of Death Eaters, led by Bellatrix Lestrange. Spider-man swings in to help, trapping Lestrange in a web, but he’s outnumbered and soon overpowered. Just when it seems that he and the Simpsons are doomed, a gigantic boat rises out of the Hudson River. It’s the legendary Flying Dutchman, and it fires magical cannonballs that chase the witches away. The Simpsons are taken aboard the ship, and its captain introduces himself as Jack Sparrow, Professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.

Aboard the Dutchman, now safely underwater, Sparrow answers some questions. He explains that he’s hundreds of years old, immortal thanks to the Fountain of Youth. Apparently, a new prophesy says that in the final battle between Voldemort and Harry Potter, the winner will be decided by a first year wizard with yellow skin and spiky hair. Sparrow was sent by Dumbledore to escort Bart and his family safely to the school, before Voldemort could kill him. “I’m afraid you’ll all be living at Hogwarts for a while. Savvy?”

“Mmm,” says Homer. “Hog.”

Movies introduced in this chapter: The Simpsons, Harry Potter, Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean

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On this holiest of America’s fireworks-oriented days off from work, I’d like to talk a bit about how much I love my country.

My parents used to take me to the 4th of July parade in our New Jersey town. I thought I loved my country then.

At the fireworks later that night, everyone would talk about the “grand finale” — when was the “grand finale?” I thought I loved my country then.

But when I was 15 years old, again on the 4th of July, I truly learned to love my country.

Because on that day, at the Warner Quad in Ridgewood, NJ, in the company of a friend with the patriotic and appropriate last name of Hancock, I first saw Independence Day.

The top 10 things I learned that day that I would never forget, after the jump —

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So last May (that’s May 2007), Matt “Call Me the Webmaster” Wrather and I were taking in The Coast of Utopia, a trilogy of plays by Tom Stoppard. It covers the part of Russian history most people don’t know a lot about — between when Catherine the Great had sex with a horse and when Animal Farm picks up.

So anyway, during one of the intermissions, I was sort of free-associating, as is my wont. And like an apple hitting me on the head (see how I’m referring both to Newton and orchards?) I realized that Tobey Maguire is in both Spider-Man and The Cider House Rules. And that Spider and Cider rhyme. And then I knew I was doomed. I was going to have to do something about it.

So here you go, internet. The Spider House Rules.

I don’t really expect it to get watched that much, since The Cider House Rules isn’t that well-known. But as long as you guys are impressed, I will not have sat through the terrible 1992 Michael Caine thriller Blue Ice in vain (I needed him holding a gun).