This Week in Useless Pop Culture

• Every year more blockbusters come out and make up stupid “record-shattering” box office numbers. For example, SpiderMan 3 was easily the highest grossing arachnid-themed Tobey Maguire movie in which a main character dances on a table with Billy Corgan makeup. Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End was the highest grossing third installment in a series based on a theme park ride that starred Keith Richards. And now Transformers has made “box office history” by being the highest non-sequel grosser over July 4th weekend (and also won in the frame of second highest amount of product placement in a Shia LaBoeuf movie after Disturbia). Transformers, like most of the other movies featured above, decided to release their film earlier in the week, which makes their box office look gigantic. While Spidey and Pirates came out on the Wednesday before their release weekend, Transformers was already hitting theaters last Monday. Now, the studio is promoting a $152.5 million gross instead of the $67.7 million that it took in over the real weekend. Is it me, or is that the cinematic equivalent of crotch-stuffing?

         

          We have armadillos in our trousers.

• Larry the Cable Guy is getting his own beer, which will be called, wait for it, Git R’ Done. Because everyone wants to drink a beer manufactured by a racist, hack comedian known for having his ass crack hanging out of his jeans.
• The Washington Post has written an article on something that plagues us all. When our favorite actors make shitty career moves. Not mentioned: Eugene Levy, Eddie Murphy, and, the most heartbreaking, Christian Slater.
• Tom Hanks is into indie rock.
• And Captain America has finally ended. I’m a little bummed that he wasn’t buried in his Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook, but I suppose it is fitting that his funeral took place at Arlington Cemetery.