“One sure measure of a great anime series (or any great work for that matter) is the creative energy it imparts to its viewers and the lengths to which they go to express their dedication. Over the last three decades, a great many Star Blazers fans have elevated themselves to the level of Superfan; those who take their creative energy so far that they add new dimensions to the experience, expanding it beyond its original scope. This was certainly the case with two of the show’s earliest superfans: Michael Pinto and Brian Cirulnick.”
Brought to us by the team that did similar light-gun shooters like “Crossbow” and “Crackshot”, “Chiller” takes a major right-turn down the path to hell. Set in the bowels of some sort of castle/mansion/yermom’sbasement environment, “Chiller” runs through four stages featuring various degrees of torture and man’s inhumanity to man…and woman.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 14, 2008 in Animation
Vampz is a entertaining short animated student film from France. This movie is the work of three students of the EESA school: Adrien Barbier Lambert, Adrien Annesley and Lâm Le Thanh. Collaborating on music was Olivier Michelot, and the sound design is by Tamara Demicheli.
Even before you know anything about the game, the title Cadillacs and Dinosaurs makes an impact. It screams B-movie hokeyness, two extremes that should never be combined.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 13, 2008 in Comic Books
When I’m looking for inspiration (or just for a cool gift) I always find myself wandering over to the MoMA giftshop here in Soho, New York. This is always a dangerous activity as in their basement they have an amazing mini-book store which is crammed with all sorts of goodies — which are mostly oversized expensive art books. However I was recently pleased to come across this cute little book put out by Spanish publisher (or maybe they’re a design firm?) Pepe Gimeno:
I did some searching on the net, but sadly I couldn’t find out anything more about the illustrator of the book who is just credited as Vane. I wish I could find out more becuse while the artwork had that typical hipster feel on the surface, the sense of surrealism reminded me of a Fellini film:
Sometimes simply mashing two good ideas together is enough to bring the fun back to otherwise tired modes of play. Take the block breaking action of “Breakout,” add the vertical down-scroll of “Tetris,” some head-to-head action and sprinkle it with lots of pink and blue glitter and a stereotypical anime school-girl, and you have “Blocken.”
It’s no surprise that there are exactly 1,035,648,399 different clones of the original Space Invaders. Today, I’m taking a look at one of them, Taito’s Akkanvader from 1995. It’s colorful, cute, and best of all, fun!
What happens when you mix Robocop with ummm, well I’m not quite sure! I think the true test of a great B movie is if you can’t tell the trailer is real or if it’s a parody — and the Demolitionist (from 1995) succeeds!
“A new stereo view of Phobos, the larger and inner of Mars’ two tiny moons, has been captured by a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took two images of Phobos 10 minutes apart on March 23. Scientists combined the images for a stereo view.
“Phobos is of great interest because it may be rich in water ice and carbon-rich materials,” said Alfred McEwen, HiRISE principal investigator at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, Tucson. ”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 10, 2008 in Science
What’s amazing about this vehicle is that the living quarters being carried around by this lunar robot will weigh 15 tons. What’s great about this concept is that the same technology could be used to construct a base on Mars in advance of human explorers reaching the planet:
“NASA engineers are testing out a giant, six-legged robot that could pick up and move a future Moon base thousands of kilometres across the lunar surface, allowing astronauts to explore much more than just the area around their landing site. In a 2005 report about its exploration plans, NASA said it wanted to set up a base at a fixed location on the Moon after initially returning humans there in 2020.
But a gargantuan robotic vehicle called ATHLETE (All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer) could change that. Measuring about 7.5 metres wide, with legs more than 6 metres long, the robot could act essentially like a turtle, carrying the astronauts’ living quarters around on its back. It was designed by engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, US, who are now testing two small-scale prototypes of the robot.”
Old School Fanboy Rant: Having grown up in the 70s the original Battlestar Galactica was like treasured junk food, so while you craved a high quality meal like Star Wars you were pretty darn happy to find a weekly TV show that spaceships buzzing around and things blowing up. The new series tries to make up for that “original sin” but misses the key selling point which is that Galactica was never trying to be the coolest kid on the block — what made it charming was the cheese! But if you’re a new school Galactica fanboy (or fangurl) then you’ll have to adorn your hacienda with this poster:
“The tin toasters are easy! Those damn Cylons are tricky bastards. I’m not talking about those big walking toasters with the oscillating eye, the big flying models full of gore and guns, or even the so-called “hybrids.” I’m talking about the humanoids. The religious zealots who are out to subjugate humanity in any way possible. I hate those guys.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 9, 2008 in Videogames
Now you’re playing with power! This 1985 commercial for Nintendo seems to be inspired by films like Blade Runner and Alien. What’s funny about the commercial is that the set design has a very bleak cyberpunk look, yet when the game displays pop up you get the sharp visual contrast of kid friendly candy colored 8 bit graphics.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 8, 2008 in Comic Books
UDON Entertainment is publishing an English edition of APPLE, an amazing looking Korean illustration and comics anthology. As a manga snob I’ve been quite impressed with the quality of comics coming out of Korea recently, and the previews I’ve seen of this publication are a good example of what I hope is the start of a new trend. APPLE stands for “A Place for People who Love Entertainment” and features many artists who work on video games, so they’re also bringing a bit of an outside perspective to comics which is quite refreshing. Volume One comes out in May and you can pre-order at Amazon.com:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 8, 2008 in Comic Books
This week Image Comics is releasing Stupid Comics: Phoenix Edition by Jim Mahfood. The book is filled with his comic strips from the weekly Phoenix New Times newspaper and deal with every theme from sex to politics (two of my favorite topics!). In addition to his sense of humor I just love the look of Mahfood’s artwork, it has a sharp sense of style.
While we have yet to make it to Mars, maybe in my lifetime we’ll spot another Earth? So far we’ve discovered 300 planets outside of our solar system so the odds are in our favor:
“Astronomers have discovered a planetary system orbiting a distant star which looks much like our own. They found two planets that were close matches for Jupiter and Saturn orbiting a star about half the size of our Sun. Martin Dominik, from St Andrews University in the UK, said the finding suggested systems like our own could be much more common than we thought.
And he told a major meeting that astronomers were on the brink of finding many more of them.”
From page ten of the Montgomery Ward Christmas Catalog from 1984:
“Meet the Tomy Robots. Omnibot is a sophisticated butler who amazes children and adults alike with his charm and intelligence.”
Omnibot is shown above and below, also featured were Verbot which “recognizes his mater’s voice” and Dingbot who “always seems a bit confused”. Omnibot featured a remote control, alarm clock and an audio cassette player and cost $224 if you order him before December 3rd, 1984.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 6, 2008 in Animation
I first ran across Maidokuro: The Awesome Corpse-Housemaid on iTunes as a video podcast and I was hooked right away watching episodes on my daily subway ride. Each episode (which only last s a few seconds each) stars a cute corpse maid who kills her client in a new clever way. The show looks better as a podcast but you can always catch episodes at YouTube.
I just found out that Charlton Heston passed away at age 84. While he got his start in films in 1950 and won an Oscar, as a fanboy I’ll always associate him with such classic fanboy favorites like Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green and The Omega Man.
Here’s an amazing scene from Soylent Green, Charlton Heston’s tears at Sol’s death were real, as Heston was the only cast member who knew that Edward G. Robinson was dying of terminal cancer. This was the 90th and last movie in which Robinson appeared:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 6, 2008 in Comic Books
These superheroes are so posed looking in their silly costumes that I find myself rooting for the giant monster who views The Last Defenders as an all-you-can-eat smörgåsbord. Cover art by chef Mike Deodato (this issue will be food courts on April 9th, 2008).
