Morning Meme: Boycotting Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, NPH Surprises David Burtka, and Good News From Malawi

Plus Fox News branches out to homophobia in movie reviews, Louis Van Amstel for NOH8, and will the Concorde fly again?

Fantasy fans everywhere shed a tear this weekend as Guillermo del Toro announced he couldn't wait around any longer for MGM to figure out their finances, so he’s quitting The Hobbit after investing two years in creature creation and developing scripts with Peter Jackson on the epic story from J.R.R. Tolkien.

Dennis Hopper passed away Saturday from complications due to prostate cancer at the age of 74. 

Reports are coming out that GQ has named Prince Harry the world’s coolest man. My issue with this is that when I think of “coolest man” my mind goes to a classic Frank Sinatra, not a smokin’ hot ginger with a habit of drunkenly licking his mates after snorting vodka.

While you all thought I was finished mocking Lost now that it was over, I would like to point out that more people watched the season finale of Alf than cared to tune in for the Lost finale.

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is playing the role of B.A. Baracus in the new A-Team. And he wants you to know that “acting is kind of gay” and “Vancouver strikes me as a San Francisco kind of place.  And I don’t want [individuals] getting ideas about me.” For the record, [individuals] is the polite way the Los Angeles Times chose to put what he said. It gets worse – so much worse that I’m boycotting everything to do with the A-Team, including Bradley Cooper’s hairy chest, because it gives me ideas. Fox can’t have my $15 for anything with Jackson in it.

During Pride 2010 in New York City, VisualAIDS will distribute trading cards with smoking hot guys in sporting gear as conceived by artists like Aaron Corbett, inkedKenny, Greg Mitchell, and Slava Mogutin. Instead of the bubble gum you’d get with baseball cards, you get a condom, lube and a sticker. Instead of stats you get facts about testing, treatment and safe sex. To heck with Pokemon, I’ll definitely collect all of these!

Over the weekend, the gay couple jailed in Malawi for being themselves was pardoned and released after meetings between United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon and Malawi’s President Binga Wu Mutharika. Not everything turned up roses, as it appears they were pardoned only for the original crime, and if they continue their relationship, they will be charged anew.

Madonna released a self-congratulatory statement about the pardon and the 30,000 people who signed her online petition. Not to be negative (maybe I can’t help myself), but there was a time when a call-to-arms by Madonna would have gotten a much bigger response than 30,000 people.

Sir Ian McKellen reflects on aging, his career, the status of The Hobbit, and the beauty of New Zealand men. The interviewer takes time to recount Sir Ian falling for New Zealand artist Nick Cuthell back in 2000. McKellen took the 40 years younger man as his date to the 2002 Academy Awards to nary a raised eyebrow. It was a brilliant piece of living honestly and boldly.

How cute is it that Neil Patrick Harris pulled off a big surprise 35^th birthday party for his partner David Burtka? They both look so happy, and that’s one humdinger of a kiss David lays on him as a thank you in the photos.

The Concorde used to stand for the ultimate in elegance and expense when I was young. So the retirement of the planes after the disaster in Paris in 2000 broke my heart. Now there’s a £15 million plan to get one of the planes back in the sky in time for the 2012 London Olympics.

HijiNKS ENSUE takes another amusing swipe at the programming on our parent company Logo.

Bill Condon continues to add talent to his HBO pilot Tilda, about a ruthless Hollywood entertainment blogger. He already had Diane Keaton and Ellen Page, and now hunks Wes Bentley, David Harbour and Leland Orser have signed up to work for the out director.

Prince of Persia bombed at the theater this weekend, in my opinion because Jake Gyllenhaal spent too much time with his shirt on. But according to the reviewer at Fox, it followed very conservative politics, as do all blockbusters. He even went so far as to say:

That’s why, in every big Hollywood action movie, the hero is a heterosexual who fights to restore order and justice. The hero might have to confront entrenched and corrupt authority, but whether he’s combating a sinister corporation or an alien zombie, he fights to uphold familiar tradition and American values. No Hollywood action hero fights for communism. No leading man, or leading woman, struggles--on screen, at least--to advance homosexuality, or abortion rights, or any of the sort of “transgressive” sexual-cultural ideas that fill up campuses these days.

Out hottie Louis Van Amstel got the female contigent from Dancing With the Stars to head over to Adam Bouska's studio to show their support for marriage equality.

Good looking bunch, but I think Adam could even make me look good.

There's no easy way to say this...

Reader csc68 tipped us to a Equality California "Swim for Equality" pool party held this weekend as a fund raiser. A variety of activists, actors, and reality stars showed up and stripped down to show their support for marriage equality. The Memorial Day Pool Party I was invited to did not look like this.

Left: Thom Bierdz (Y&R) and Patrick Cronen (AMC) - Right: Madison Hildebrand (Million Dollar Listing) and Equality California's Michael Holtz.

Paul Vandervort (Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency), Ryan McIntyre (Beyond the Wall of Sleep) and Madison Hildebrand

Left: Models Greg Armstrong, Ryan McIntyre and Ari Esfahani - Right: Singers LK and ZriiYa

I spent the holiday weekend with the stomach flu, so I watched a lot of television. And since they never have anything good on during a holiday weekend, I ended up watching some things I'm not used to seeing. At #15 on the CMT Top 20 Countdown, I discovered a band named Jaron and the Long Road to Love who had a song called "Pray For You." This is how all my relationships go.

As the marketing crescendo for Toy Story 3 maxes out, we get this character study for Ken. The boy has got some issues, and his wardrobe appears to be the least of them. I'm intrigued to see where Pixar takes this. In less accomplished hands, I'd expect him to end up as a fey, evil cliche, but Pixar has a history of clever spins on characters. They're using viral marketing videos created at no small expense to poke fun at the masculine and feminine roles that we impose on children through toys. I'm hopeful for a smart, biting social commentary coming out of this.

In the latest trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, we get to see Michael Cera getting pummeled before magically gaining 1980s video game fighting skills. We also get treated to repeated use of the word "lesbians" which may or may not end up being funny in a good way. Considering the target audience for the movie, I'm not holding my breath.