With simulcasting and the proliferation of digital distribution both legal and otherwise, it comes as no surprise that Hulu has finally decided to take anime seriously. While US distributors are losing the constant battle for shelf space with brick & mortar retailers, companies like CrunchyRoll, Netflix, and Anime News Network have worked to expand their online catalog. While Hulu has managed to ink deals with companies like Funimation and Aniplex to stream several of their titles in recent months, on July 3rd the company will begin to stream the upcoming second season of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clana mere 3 hours after its Japanese broadcast. Sure, it’s not quite a simulcast, but its impressive.
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Jun 30, 2011 in Cinema, Fandom
Well, it’s certainly not the worst fan-film I’ve ever seen —Dark Betrayalcomes to mind — but I suppose we can’t really expect much after the hot mess that was John Carpenter’s Escape from L.A. I have a soft-spot in my heart for that film, but even I have to admit that it was terrible. Rather than attempting to follow Carpenter’s ridiculous sequel, director Chris Notarile decided to pen one of his own with his fan-film Escape from New Jersey. I imagine that trying to recreate the feel of Carpenter’s original film would be difficult on a shoe-string budget. Though it’s slow-paced, and lacks polish, the script itself isn’t half bad. While I can’t overlook every issue, I feel the film is a decent attempt worth mentioning. It’s enough to make me wonder if Snake Plisskin will ever make his return. Until then, this might have to do.
I have to admit, there’s nothing quite like watching Apple fail. In recent years, the company has worked to establish an infallible aura surrounding creative platforms like music and film production. This has led their users to believe the notion that Apple could do no wrong. Rightfully so, Apple became Hollywood’s industry standard. When the company released the latest version of their video production software Final Cut Pro X, studios flocked to install the new software, only to find that Apple had changed almost everything, and had completely removed many of the advanced features in a vain attempt to simplify the work-flow. It wasn’t long before someone — in this case, Conan O’Brien’s staff — decided to poke fun at Apple’s shiny new crippleware. The worst part? It’s all true.
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Jun 29, 2011 in Videogames
Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 3 is still months away from its official release, but today the company launched its “closed” multiplayer beta. They say closed, but there are a number of ways for prospective gamers to gain access. The first and most immediate way would be to purchase a Playstation Plus membership, or to take advantage of Sony’s free 30 day offer they extended in light of their recent troubles if you haven’t done so already. This will allow you to access the beta early. Another method, and perhaps the most satisfying for some would be visiting any Subway restaurant during the month of October to obtain a code. Unfortunately, that won’t leave you with a lot of time to toy with the multiplayer ahead of its November 11th release date, but it’s better than nothing. After all, I’m sure nobody is really buying the game for its “ground-breaking” multiplayer experience.
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Jun 28, 2011 in Cinema, Design
The other week I stumbled across the works of Damon Bard. While many of you might not recognize his name, you’ll definitely recognize his work. Damon’s been involved with a number of Hollywood productions over the course of his career, with his sculptures and character designs having graced such films Revenge of the Sith, How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek 2, and more. While his website might seem a tad unassuming, his online portfolio is filled with a plethora of beautiful sculptures, Marquettes and models he’s crafted over the years. While he might not be responsible for bringing these models to life on the big screen, Bards creations have likely fueled the creativity of animators who have. To find out more about Damon and his craft, check out his official website, portfolio and blog.
This one took me by surprise. About a year ago, there were some rumors floating around the net regarding a potential live-action adaptation of the classic manga, Rurouni Kenshin. Well, it turns out it’s not just some rumor after all. Warner Brothers will be producing the film, starring Sato Takeru as Kenshin. Some of you might recognize him from last year’s live-action adaptation of Beck (the manga, not the musician.) While I enjoyed the Rurouni Kenshin‘s manga and OVAs, the animated series that aired in the late-90s seemed a bit too juvenile in comparison. Of course, that didn’t stop it from being wildly popular. Still, I’m looking forward to seeing how the film shapes up over the next few months. The rest of the cast for the upcoming film have yet to be unveiled, and it won’t hit theaters until sometime in 2012.
You may not recognize the name Chris Meloni, but I guarantee you’ll recognize his face, seeing as for the past 12 years he’s been one of the two primary faces on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (the other being the talented Mariska Hargitay). Word on ComingSoon.net is that Meloni, who is departing SVU for greener pastures (or at least less “blue” ones…get it? Cop uniforms? No? Okay then!), will play “a general” in Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman flick, Man of Steel. So no, everyone who thought he’d play Lex Luthor is (sadly) wrong. But… Read more…
Music fans— and horror fans — will doubtless nod knowingly when they hear that Michael Jackson’s trademark red and black leather(-that-looks-like-vinyl) jacket from the music video for “Thriller” has sold for US$1.8 million dollars at auction. That’s nine times the initial estimate of “at least $200,000.” That’s a damn high price, even if you factor in that the jacket is signed. Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Jun 26, 2011 in Comic Books
With great power comes great sacrifice! Brian Michael Bendis wrote Peter Parker’s origins in the Ultimate Spider-Man series, one of the arguably more successful forays into Marvel’s Ultimate continuity, so it’s only fitting that he also got to write … the end of Peter Parker?! That’s right: Marvel has officially killed Peter Parker in the Ultimate universe as of Ultimate Spider-Man #160. So what’s next for Ultimate Spidey? A new hero and a new costume, though Marvel is mum on the details, will appear in the Ultimate Comics Fallout series in August, with a reappearance in Ultimate Spider-Man #161 to follow. While Bendis insists that Parker is deader than dead in this continuity, fans of the web-slinger can still catch his adventures in The Amazing Spider-Man, which is ongoing. Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Jun 25, 2011 in Comic Books
We’ve seen minimalistic versions of superheroes in pixel form plenty of times before, but I think this is the first time that I’ve seen superheroes represented as flags! Fabian Gonzalez created this piece, available in print and t-shirt form, giving 50 different superheroes their very own national flag. Some of them are obvious (Captain America), some less so (is that Black Vulcan?). How many can you name? And would you want to live in the People’s Republic of Spawn? Read more…
For Chris Pine, taking up the role of Captain Kirk for the Star Trek film reboot was tough — not only because of the decades of fan love that William Shatner’s Kirk had amassed, but also because Shatner is a wily old coot who’s rumored to kill and eat any challengers for his Kirk throne. Thankfully, Pine survived the filming process without becoming Shatner food, and even got some critical acclaim to go along with his Captain title. Shatner had one final plan to defeat Pine, though — stage a fake documentary titled “The Captains,” wherein he’d pretend to interview all of the other Trek captains (like Patrick Stewart and Kate Mulgrew), then surprise him with an arm-wrestling contest … to the death. Okay, that’s actually not the circumstance for the above photo at all, but the documentary part is real, at least. Read about it on /Film. Read more…
Of all the things I expected to see on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a man in Panthro makeup performing an orchestral version of the Thundercats theme song with full backup was admittedly not one of them. Thankfully, it was forever encased in digital bronze via Hulu, allowing future generations to look at that point in history and say, definitively, “This is the point when the world changed forever. This is when we all looked at each other and realized our problems meant nothing compared to the eternal struggle between fearless Lion-O and the dread sorcerer Mumm-Ra. This piece of music was the turning point.” Read more…
It’s almost hard to believe that The Fellowship of the Ring was released ten years ago, and even harder to believe that we’re actually getting two more films with Peter Jackson’s masterful take on Tolkien’s universe. We saw a video journal of the first day of filming for The Hobbit a while back, but all we’ve heard since then is casting news (a veritable who’s-who of BBC drama stars). Today, though, we received the first big payoff of the very long wait for The Hobbit — still photos from the set showing Martin Freeman in full Bilbo getup, Gandalf looking stoned, and Freeman and Jackson talking at a table. It all looks pretty much perfect, and totally in-universe for the original trilogy. Who else is excited to go back to Middle-Earth? Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Jun 23, 2011 in Comic Books
This is kind of exciting news for manga fans. CrunchyRoll is readying a closed beta for their upcoming online manga distribution platform, JManga.com and are currently accepting applications from North Americans readers interested in testing it out. They haven’t released too many details about the new service, but have stated that they’ve been working closely with their partners in Japan in order to facilitate their selection of content. They’re hoping to use your feedback to improve the site before its official launch later this year. Like CrunchyRoll, I imagine it will be in the form of a subscription based premium service. To sign up for a chance to take part in the closed beta, simply click here and fill out their form. If you’re picked for the beta, they’ll be notifying you the first week of July.
The other day, we mentioned the upcoming Saint Seiya PS3 title being developed by Namco Bandai. This evening they officially gave us our first look at the game. The short teaser only contains a bit of actual gameplay, but it seems as though I was spot on when I predicted the game would resemble Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors. Personally, I love those games even if other people can’t really them — Dynasty Warriors, and series like it, often receive less than stellar reviews in the West — so this little teaser has me really excited to see where they take the title from here. On top of that, I think they a fantastic job capturing the feel of the series with the character designs. Let’s just hope someone decides to license the title after it hits Japanese shelves later this fall.
Our friends at Neatorama have launched their very own line of zombie themed goodies! Their first offerings include two very clever zombie doorstops (one of which is shown above) and there’s also a set of zombie refrigerator magnets: Read more…
Though I was never a huge fan of Doctor Who, it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with it’s more recent spin-off Torchwood. Series four, Miracle Day as they’re calling it looks to move the production of the show stateside, no doubt due to the nature of its mixed cast. It had been rumored that the show would end up as a reboot airing on Fox but that deal seems to have fallen through, and the series will instead continue its previous plot where it left off on Starz and BBC Worldwide starting July 8th. To help promote the show, the studio has developed an iOS app that’ll pack in an interactive motion comic with “some gameplay elements”. The comics will tell a parallel story featuring the voices of Eliza Dushku, John Barrowman, Eve Myles. Personally, I can’t stand Dushku, but Barrowman’s great so I’m psyched. An additional nine episodes will be available in packs of three for $1, or as an entire pack for $3. The app will be made available prior to the premiere on July 8th.
While it didn’t take much to sell me on Peter Jackson & Steven Spielberg’s upcoming 3D animated feature, The Adventures of Tintin, I’m sure some of you might still be on the fence. Several fans of the series have been complaining about Jackson’s liberal take on many of the characters after viewing recent trailers for the film. Personally, I don’t really mind the changes. Clearly several changes are to be expected when taking a classic comic and re-imagining it for 3D animation. To illustrate that, Weta & HarperCollins will be publishing the upcoming book The Art of The Adventures of Tintin. The book apparently covers early illustrations, the final shots, and everything in-between, along with forewards from both Jackson and Spielberg. On top of that, the initial run being sold directly by Weta will feature a special gift — the special prop wallet, along with the passages used to locate the boat from the original story. That’s subject to change, but it sounds pretty amazing. The book will retail for $40, and will be ship this October. Pre-order yours while gift supplies last.
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Jun 21, 2011 in Videogames
I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with this classic series — it was pretty huge in Mexico — but Saint Seiya fans might be pleased to hear that the series will be receiving its very own PS3 title. The game’s being developed by Namco Bandai, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll publish it overseas. Thankfully, if you’re a big enough fan of the series living in North America, you should still be able to import yourself a copy of the game seeing as we share Japan’s Blu-ray region code. According to V-Jump magazine, Saint Seiya Senki, as they’re calling it, will feature “cinematic melee action,” and should feature each of the saints squaring off against numerous opponents. I imagine that probably means something like Dynasty Warriors Gundam, but I could be wrong. We’re expecting to see a trailer for the game hit the official site later this week. The game should release this fall.
Here’s some hilarious clips featuring the 1978 Fantastic Four animated series with a cameo by none other than the master of magnetism himself. The show only lasted 12 episodes, no doubt due to the lack of the Human Torch — after all, he’s the only member anyone really liked. While there had been a long-running rumor that network executives were worried about kids immolating themselves, the fact of the matter was that Johnny Blaze had been licensed to NBC at the time for a potential pilot that never got picked up. Of course, with amazing scripts like The Menace Of Magneto here, I’m sureno amount of “flame on” could have saved it, and can someone please tell me why every 70’s cartoon villain felt the compulsive need to narrate everything?
HBO aired the last episode of its adaptation of Game of Thrones, the first book in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, last night, and by and large the response is: OMGWTFCoK! CoK, of course, referring to A Clash of Kings— the second book in the series, which HBO will also adapt. And which everyone who watched all of Game of Thrones is now salivating for (even if they already read the novels).
But before we get too excited for the second season, which hasn’t even been slated for broadcast yet, let’s talk about what HBO did right (and wrong) with the series so far. (Spoilers: they did almost everything right.) Read more…
This video paints a very pessimistic picture of how the flood of information we are creating today could be lost over time. As someone who has been playing with computers since the Reagan era seeing the images of floppy disks reminded me that indeed I still own a few that have data for computers like the C-64 and Apple II that have long since vanished — never mind zip disks from just a few years ago. We’re only been into this data revolution for a few short years, but I’ve already had several bad experiences which make me wonder about the long term security of the medium we’re crafting. Read more…
To me the coolest thing about this William Shatner Twilight Zone action figure is that it was actually approved by William Shatner himself! I still find myself upset that Shat didn’t get any love in the last Star Trek film, so it’s nice to see him getting some attention for his Twilight Zone work — even if its in the small scale form of an 8″ tall action figure. Read more…
