Universal Pictures (a Comcast company!) turned 100 years old on April 30. Overall, it's been a decent century, from their classic horror films of the '30s and '40s through postwar abundance to the subsequent focus on television production. Sure, Universal's released its share of dogs (how many freaking Francis the Talking Mule movies were there?), but also a fair number of classics like Dracula, The Wolf Man, To Kill a Mockingbird, American Graffiti, High Plains Drifter, Jaws, E.T., Schindler's List...not too shabby for a hundred years.

To commemorate this milestone, the studio has been leading off its 2012 releases with an updated version of its classic globe logo (seen above). And maybe it's just me, but a fair number of this year's movies may not have made the likes of Carl Laemmle and Irving Thalberg's waistcoats swell with pride.

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Tywin and Arya never met in the books! NERD RAGE!

Season Two of Game of Thrones, HBO's rat's-eye-view of the struggle for control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros (and beyond), is nearing conclusion. We already know the penultimate episode, "Blackwater," will focus on the battle for King's Landing, and the remaining weeks will hopefully offer resolution to matters regarding Daenerys's missing dragons, Arya and her death genie Jaqen, and Robb and Jon's respective (and wildly divergent) romance issues.

And also the whole, you know, war.

What's become even more apparent this season than last is how far afield David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are willing to travel from George R.R. Martin's source material, especially in (but not limited to) the examples listed above. Time constraints are one reason, and I heard somewhere that Martin was trying to create some minor distance from the books as a treat to readers (he's obviously underestimated the anal retention of ASoIaF nerds). But anyway I did one of these for season one and figured now would be a good time to look at some of the occasionally significant ways the show's producers are altering the landscape of the books.

But be warned, I'm about to spoil the shit out of the rest of the season and possibly several books going forward. If that was too subtle for you -- SPOILERS AHEAD. DO NOT READ IF YOU'RE GOING TO GET ALL PISSY IN THE COMMENTS BECAUSE YOU FOUND OUT WHO DIES NEXT SEASON.

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Not in a million years, fellas.

In case you hadn't heard, the busty Modern Family star is back on the market:

Sofia Vergara is single again after splitting with boyfriend Nick Loeb after more than two years together, Page Six can exclusively reveal.

The Colombian stunner and New York-based Loeb broke up over the weekend following a series of arguments, sources tell us. And, on Monday, she attended the Met Ball alone.

A source told us, "Sofia was confiding in friends at the ball that she and Nick have split. They have been fighting a lot recently and have been on the brink of splitting many times. It is not yet clear if they are over for good, but they are done as a couple for now."

I don't know if you've seen pictures of Loeb, but this is the least surprising news since I found out Paula Deen had diabetes. But enough cruelty; Sofia's available once again, and if you needed a reminder of why she'll be considered one of the most eligible women out there, here you go.

Because if we're being honest, sweatily hunching in front of your compuer monitor is as close as you're going to get.

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If The Avengers' $200 million opening weekend proves anything, it's that piracy isn't having any effect on the movie industry.

Ha ha. But seriously, what it's shown us is 2012 will likely be one of the biggest -- if not *the* biggest -- years in Hollywood box-office history. From The Hunger Games to The Avengers to The Dark Knight Rises to Amazing Spider-Man...Brave, Prometheus, etc., etc. The list of anticipated movies is almost unprecedented.

And none more so, in this humble writer's opinion, than Piranha 3DD.

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Stupid sexy Banner!

Anybody remember the kerfuffle around the original version of the Avengers movie poster? Or how incensed everyone was that Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow was the only character whose rear end was pointed at us? Kevin Bolk's response, shown above, parodied it nicely.

I don't remember if anybody asked Johansson herself what she thought of the whole thing, or if she minded, because her derriere actually figures very prominently in the final version of The Avengers (just as it did in Lost in Translation, and probably every movie of hers since 2003). Is this a bad thing? I don't know. Few movies outside of late-1980s era Stallone are as dripping with testosterone as The Avengers, from Thor and the Hulk beating the shit out of each other to Agent Coulson's bro-love for Captain America, so repeatedly focusing on Black Widow's caboose or tying her to a chair in a minidress and stockings (but she naturally has the bad guys where she wants them the whole time) feminizes the proceedings somewhat.

I guess.

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If only.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death at the hands of Navy SEALS (temporarily in the employ of the CIA, to make it all nice and legal). In just under 40 minutes, some two dozen commandos stormed the al Qaeda leader's compound in Abbottabad and shot him dead. After bin Laden's identity was verified, his body was flown from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan to the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson and buried at sea.

What a gyp.

Osama bin Laden was a real-life supervillain. The mastermind behind the 9-11 attacks as well as the embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi was the most nefarious enemy our country has faced since the Cold War. And he died off camera. Are you kidding me? We wanted the Belloq death scene from Raiders, but what we got wasn't even the Indy-shooting-the-swordsman scene from Raiders.

This is America, dammit. We like our beer cold, our TV loud and our bad guys blown into atoms in widescreen Technicolor by a shirtless, cigar-smoking dude firing an RPG who immediately makes a wisecrack like, "Don't blow your top, bin Laden." In short, we wanted him to die more like one of these guys.

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You can keep the jetpacks, nerds.

We're well into the year 2012 at this point and -- let's face it -- beyond "Angry Birds" and the new Batman movies, the 21st century has been pretty disappointing. From the continued gutting of NASA's budget, the depressing lack of effective laser weaponry, and Jennifer Aniston's persistent romantic woes, the 2000s so far look a lot like the previous few decades, except there are fewer cruise ship-themed sitcoms or Sasquatch movies.

So we can't have teleportation, I accept that. But if we aren't going to see real scientific progress toward lifting humanity out of degradation and brutality, then at least give me the opposite. Six incarnations of the Real Housewives franchise and 37 flavors of Gatorade are a good start, but if we're ever going to live up to our dystopian potential as a fallen civilization, we need to push the envelope in an extreme envelope pushing fashion. In short, we need some blood sports, stat.

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Who?

If your response to the news that reality couple Bill and Giuliana Rancic were expecting their first child was "Who the fuck are Bill and Giuliana Rancic?" you're likely not alone.

But rather than simply posit the question on Twitter like so many Dick Clark-deprived youngsters, I chose to edumacate myself. Three minutes later, I know she is a TV host on E!, and he is a TV host of a syndicated show called America Now. He was also the winner of the first season of The Apprentice, and I suppose anyone who conquered the infernal Omarosa is worthy of some recognition.

So they're small "c" celebrities. And yet, their fertility woes and Giuliana's cancer struggles at least make their story a somewhat compelling one, certainly when compared to other celebrity couples.

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This time for sure!

This sounds familiar:

"Arrested Development's" long-awaited fourth season will appear on Netflix early next year, Netflix chief Ted Sarandos told reporters at the National Assn. of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas on Tuesday. But it won't unfold on a weekly basis like a regular TV series; instead, Netflix will make all 10 new episodes of the cult favorite available simultaneously, as people have come to expect when they stream a TV series on Netflix.

Series creator Mitch Hurwitz was also on hand to describe a bit of what fans will see in the new episodes. As reported by Vulture, Hurwitz said that though his initial conception of the fourth season was to do it as an anthology, with each character getting his or her own episode, the current incarnation is closer to the style of the first three seasons.
[...]
The new episodes are set to start production this summer with an early 2013 debut date that hasn't been set yet.

Seems legit. Then again, we've been hearing similar tidings -- mostly regarding an AD feature film -- almost since before the last original episode aired in 2006.

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One's funny, one's crazy

Louis C.K.'s hit FX show Louie doesn't resume until June, but from the buzz going on you would think it starts tomorrow. To get his fans riled up, C.K. let loose a teaser to wreak havoc across the Inter-tubes. The teaser is brilliant, naturally.

C.K.'s in-your-face, raw, honest brand of humor has taken the world by storm. He has found himself at the top of several esteemed media lists, most recently Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World." Despite the accolades, C.K.'s humor has not lost any sense of humility nor changed directions. He's still a depressed schlub and that's why the world is in love with him. That and the fact that the guy is hilarious!

On the farthest, other side of the comedy spectrum, aging rocker Ted Nugent is getting slammed for spewing insults at the Democratic Party. Speaking at a National Rifle Association convention, Nugent compared the Obama administration to "coyotes" that should be taken down...with bullets. What were you thinking, Nugent? Apparently he was not thinking at all, because his actions have gotten the attention of the Secret Service. Hey, if you make death threats against the president, don't be shocked if the secret service shows up at your door.

Never shy to speak his mind, over the years Nugent has made some pretty outrageous comments. If taken out of context, these Nugentisms are quite funny, scary but funny. Comedians are always pushing the envelope; Louis C.K. is well known for sharing his love of masturbation! If Nugent were gunning to be a comedian, his batty, gun-toting, psycho-patriotism shtick just might fly.

Who said it: Louis C.K. or Ted Nugent?

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