If you can guess who wrote the following guest post, I will be shocked.

Great news guys! Changing the world and being BFF with Barack Obama will not get in the way of Kal Penn’s movie career! I know what you’re thinking: how did we get this lucky? I’m guessing because even Barry himself can’t go eight years without seeing one of Kal’s fantastic films. He prob also has a soft spot for stoner jokes and Neil Patrick Harris.

Warner Brothers announced today that they are green lighting “A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas,” which will be released on November 5, 2010 (what a great way to blow off steam after the midterm elections!) You know what that means! Bong hits under the mistletoe, NPH being his usual crazy self and other hijinx that only Roldy and Kumar could pull off.

My dream plotline would somehow involved getting high, stealing Santa’s sleigh and being pursued by the police while NPH tags along. And throw in some extreme sports fans and hookers for good measure. Sounds like Oscar gold to me!

While conversing with Jackie about what sort of costume one wears to a movie like Wolverine (ie, the movie I’ve been talking about for almost a year), I noted that Morgan should really be appreciative of the sacrifice I’m making by waiting until next Friday to see it, so that I can attend her birthday. The sacrifice, people. And just as I was about to blog about this (since no one but the Internet cares about my irrelevent rant), I had an epiphany—my blog’s tagline should really be, “Pop Effect: A blog about Wolverine, a baby named Morgan, and the ways in which they affect my life—and each others’.” I think I can safely say that I’ve effectively cornered the market in mutant hero/baby relations. And, apparently, there’s more to say about the subject than anyone might logically assume.

I was just thinking the other day, “Wow, I haven’t blogged about Harold, Kumar, or Harold and Kumar go to White Castle in, like, forever.” So luckily it turns out something big happened a few days ago that remedies this problem. Harold cut his hair! JK/Psych. With the real story, here’s “Ali”:

Okay guys, as you’ve probably heard by now Kal Penn—better known as Kumar, or even better known as the most gorgeous man to ever eat a vegetarian Crave Case at White Castle [ed note: if Bridget got the sex change operation she's been vying for, she could rival him; she would make an attractive vegetarian she-male]—just got a job in the White House. This is fantastic for several reasons:

First, it means that Obama is pretty cool. How many of our presidents do you think actually saw Harold and Kumar go to White Castle?  Actually I take that back, I could see GWB being all over that stupid, stoner humor.  But I bet Bush didn’t get the racial undertones, while Obama totally understood where Roldy and Kumar were coming from.

Secondly, Kumar’s hire further diversifies politics. First it was a black president, then it was a handful of Chinese American cabinet appointments, and now it’s an Indian American becoming associate director in the White House office of public liaison! Has any other Administration looked this much like a Benetton ad?

Thirdly, this means that Kumar will be living in Washington, D.C. It means that I could potentially run into him at a bar and we could fall in love and get married.  Or else I could get him drunk, “forget” a condom and entrap him. Either way, we end up together 4ever!

Maybe in Ali’s next blog, she could explain what an “associate director in the White House office of public liaison” does. If it has anything to do with deciphering the symptoms of a seemingly complex and unexplainable illness within just an hour, then I totally get why Obama hired him. Also, another note to Ali: I hear pinholes are pretty effective.

New York magazine (and Ali) laid the whole “what gender will the sex-changing comic book character be in the film adaptation of Thor?” issue to rest: Loki will possibly be played by Josh Hartnett, which means it’ll be pre-sex change [because Loki was originally a man (and Josh Hartnett currently is a man)]. But seriously, I’m already over the sex changing comic book character BECAUSE it’s not as saucy as I had previously thought. Dan explained it to me in depth, and Loki just gets resurrected as a girl instead of a dude. I thought he legitimately had a sex change, via operation, because he felt as if he couldn’t relate as a man anymore. That would have been brilliant. I’ll direct an alternate Thor movie and have it released at the same time, only mine will have the operation. It’ll be like when Armageddon and Deep Impact were released at the same time. I’m not sure which movie I’d prefer to be in that scenario though.

Here’s a super fun game that I kind of sort of came up with on my own (a claim that shall remain undisputed, so long as Jackie doesn’t read this). I like to call it: Babelfish it! ©. First, I take a well-known quote from a movie, then translate it into another language through the use of Babelfish. Then, I post the translation here with the language “key”. The reader (Dan, probably; maybe Kate Winslet) then translates it back to English and tries to guess through the hilarious language what the original quote was. Here’s a little taste:

Ich bin in einem Glasfall vom Gefühl. (German)

What popular film could this be from?? You must Babelfish It! ©.

For anyone who doesn’t understand why I love Hugh Jackman so much, please refer to the opening number of the 2009 Academy Awards. It is miraculous that the same guy who plays Wolverine can also do Kraftwerk-y electronica dance moves and look this adorable as a ‘lil baby. Also: remember when he was in Kate and Leopold?? The man has range. Maybe I just feel like I can relate to him because I didn’t see The Reader either. Whatever the reason, this post was just an excuse to publish a picture of Hugh Jackman with a baby’s body.

Awhile back, Dan invented something he likes to call the “Retrospective Oscar.” In theory it’s an Oscar for performances and movies that have been overlooked. The RO would—years later—fix the awful faux pas of inadequate Academy recognition. Usually though Dan bequeaths questionable (oft-terrible) movies with an RO. See: Tommy Boy, Die Hard, and Monkey Bone (JK on the last one Dan!).

I like the idea of the RO to honor things that were overlooked because they didn’t quite fit into the conventional categories. So in honor of the recent ceremony, I present to you my first nomination for a Retrospective Oscar: Eastern Promises (director: David Cronenberg) for Best Choreography. Because, holy shit, there is an entire fight scene in a Russian bath house where Viggo Mortensen is stark naked, and you never once get a good look at his junk! That is masterful. Any other nominations?

On a side note, I was going to link to a clip of the fight scene (which, by the way, is extremely gruesome, to the point where you almost forget that Viggo is naked at all), but I instead found this amazingly inappropriate fan video about the nonexistent romance between Viggo and Naomi Watts. Seriously, why did some girl think it was a good idea to make a romantic video about an extremely violent movie? She even inexplicably includes clips of the fight—with Hoobastank’s “The Reason” playing in the background. Naturally. This ranks very high on my list of best fan videos ever (best = most ridiculous); it’s right up there with “Daniel Radcliffe is TOXIC!” Another side note: there are several videos called Daniel Radcliffe is toxic…

I’ve decided to live blog the Oscars*. I want to keep thorough notes detailing when Hugh Jackman is awesome, as well as when he’s totally great. But since I’ll be away from my computer, I’ll just write blog posts on paper while I watch, then scan the pages. I figure it’s essentially the same thing. So after you watch the ceremony, come to POP effect for an analysis of Jackman’s presumably brilliant performance. If there is chest-baring or allusions to him being an Australian cowboy/mutant with knives between his knuckles, my posts will just be a series of exclammation points.

*Not really.

This is the sole worthy picture I took at Comic Con. Note the lack of crazies in costume. I was disappointed. There was a man who resembled Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons though, so that contented me. I guess all the attention given now to comic-based movies is sort of mainstreaming the Comic Con audience; I had no reason to be there other than for the movies.

This is just a snap of the crowd awaiting a panel discussion about Marvel comics. I don’t know why I was there. Dan said there might be noteworthy information that I could pitch to another magazine. This might have been the panel where I was expecting to hear if Thor—the transgender superhero—was going to be played by a man or a woman in the movie adaptation. Sadly that was not revealed. Dan led me astray! Astray I tell you! I did get to talk to the cutest nerd ever though (guy closest to the camera), who twittered the whole event with his left hand and held a recorder in his right hand. These people may be mainstream now, but they are serious.

I made a short film which depicts pretty much every conversation I have with Jackie lately. It is a tribute to friendship. (It may take a minute to load completely.)