Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 11, 2008 in Videogames
I’ve noticed that amongst gaming fanboy that many folks just aren’t taking the iPhone seriously as a gaming platform. In their mind they associate Steve Jobs with the Mac, but what they tend to forget is that once upon a time that the Apple ][ was THE game machine, so games are very much apart of Apple’s DNA. I think also think that people forget that great games are about great game play at the end of the day, and specifically that videogames are about coming up with innovative ways to have fun with the hardware rather than just rendering more vectors. Right now the iPhone seems like a mere toy in the world of gaming hardware — but I’d say that we should all keep a careful eye on this dark horse platform:
“In a world first, Illusion Labs has created a multi-touch skate game for the iPhone: Touchgrind. The game is unique in that finger gestures are used for control, similar to the motion of the legs and feet on a real skateboard. Touchgrind will be available in the App Store in October 2008.”
And here’s a great demo of Touchgrind worth checking out:
At heart I’m still an old school Galactica fanboy — and to be honest I only watched the show back in the day because there wasn’t much of anything else on except for Star Trek re-runs from the 60s. But you lucky new school fanboys get to have all the fun:
“Cylon Centurions are just about the meanest thing in the galaxy. They cheat at cards, they frequently punch puppies, and they never, NEVER wash their hands after going to the toilet. Oh, and they have armor-piercing projectile weapons built into each arm; that’s pretty mean, too. And these New Caprica Cylons are even meaner – you can tell by their darker color scheme. The darker color separates them from their less meaner (but still pretty ornery) cousins. It also makes this one awesome ThinkGeek exclusive action figure if you’re trying to “collect them all”.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 11, 2008 in Comic Books
Lisa Petrucci is obsessed with pin-up gals from the 50s and 60s — not the mega-stars but the unknown ladies who appeared in low-budget nudie flicks. Her work is also inspired by a healthy dose of kitsch and crafts from that era. In February of 2009 her first book will be hitting the shelves and it can be ordered in advance on Amazon:
“Walk through a sparkling world of make-believe, a cotton-candy-colored dream world of hearts, flowers, and switchblades, of dewy-eyed cartoon pinup gals, kutie-pie kowgirls, leopard-skinned sweeties, hatchet-wielding honeys, and the cuddliest devil kitties Hell has to offer. The art of Lisa Petrucci is a honey-coated maelstrom of contradictions–the innocence of lost Americana, childhood nostalgia, and traditional feminine iconography all presented with a rebellious spirit. Kickass Kuties: The Art of Lisa Petrucci is the first collection of the artist’s remarkable catalog, a hallucinatory tour through an emporium of cultural chaos, a bipolar gallery of imagery both sacred and profane.”
I love the Kidrobot store which isn’t too far from my office in NoHo, it’s a nice oasis from the world of the normal. Either this film deal will go one of two ways: My hope is that Paramount allows Wildbrain (who owns the chain) to do something interesting — but there’s always that chance that they’ll dumb it down and make some bad 3D CGI film ala Shrek:
“Paramount Pictures has made a deal with Wildbrain to turn its Kidrobot branded collectible character creations into a series of feature films that will be a mix of animation and live action. The films will be generated through Par’s Nickelodeon Movies family label and produced by Scott Aversano, who made an overall producing deal with the studio after ankling his post as head of the Nick and MTV Films labels.”
…I also still can’t forgive MTV films for ruining Aeon Flux!
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 10, 2008 in Star Wars
You lucky Lucas fanboys in the UK will have a chance to see a cool TV special on Channel 4 on September 14th which features comedian Justin Lee Collins and his quest to reunited the cast of the original Star Wars films:
“Justin Lee Collins has filmed his most ambitious telly project yet — reuniting the cast of Star Wars. The Sunday Night Project presenter set himself the biggest challenge in the Empire — linking up the stars who played heroes such as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Chewbacca. Along the way he discovered the secrets of Princess Leia’s underwear and tried to heal a bitter rift between the actors who played droids C3PO and R2D2.”
It’s been less than two weeks and I’m already burned out by constant coverage of the moose hunting mamma of the north! But while I wouldn’t trust her as a Vice President if she reincarnated as Yoko from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan she might just earn my vote:
“A movie version of the popular mecha anime “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan” has just opened in theaters, and coinciding with its release comes the announcement of the nendoroid version of the beautiful sniper, Yoko! She comes with various items that featured in the anime – including her huge rifle, as well as her signature sunglasses. She also comes with additional head and hand parts, allowing for a countless number of posing possibilities. You can pose her ready to fire her rifle, or you can switch to a completely different side of Yoko, posing her in a shy, embarrassed position. This is one nendoroid that’s going to bring a ton of fun along with it!”
“Scott Faye, producer of next month’s videogame-inspired Max Payne movie, says Duke Nukem’s universe would be perfect for big-screen adaptation. “We’re expanding Duke’s ‘storyverse’ in a very significant major way,” Faye told Kotaku about development work he’s doing with Scott Miller of videogame company 3D Realms.”
…Don’t you just hate slick Hollywood slang like “storyverse”? Hollywood just seems to hate anything new, you get the feeling that Scott Faye had an allergy to original ideas.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 9, 2008 in Animation
I’ll admit it: I’ve always loved Star Blazers over Battle of the Planets. Yes I know full well that Sandy Frank and Co. ruined Gatchaman to make it kid friendly. Well looking at the above clip this trend continues in the 21st Century! Yes I know in an age of Pixar that every damn movie must be a 3D CGI wonder, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up the aesthetics and sense of design that made the original series unique. Just like Speed Racer I’m already getting the bad feeling that film will look more like an over done video game than anime. And of course what makes me very depressed is that the same studio is set to ruin Astro Boy after this…
“What happens when you take a deadly extraterrestrial with chest-bursting parasitic offspring and acid for blood then turn it into a cute plastic figurine? Well you get these Giant Alien Kubricks of course. Made by toy master MediCom of Japan this 400% Kubrick stands almost 11″ tall and features a lever to extend and retract it’s teeth. Use it to discipline your Lego minifigs.”
Well to be fair I’m not really sure just how much Steven Spielberg had to do with this film, I think the papers just like to drag his name into the dirt. Although this does go to my ongoing rant that it seems to be a sin to have an original idea in Hollywood:
“Steven Spielberg stole the plot from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1954 film Rear Window for last year’s Disturbia, a lawsuit has claimed. Hitchcock’s film was based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich called Murder from a Fixed Viewpoint, which the director and actor James Stewart obtained the film rights to in 1953.
Sheldon Abend, a Hollywood producer who re-made Rear Window for TV, bought the rights to the short story in 1971 and obtained “exclusive right to adapt or copy” the story in 1991, it is claimed. Abend died in 2003 but the Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust filed the lawsuit in New York last week because it claims the makers of Disturbia did not obtain the rights to the story before remaking the Hitchcock classic.”
…the funny thing about this lawsuit is that in 1984 Brian De Palma directed (and co-wrote) the film Body Double which owed quite a bit to Rear Window — but De Palma was smart enough to go that step further and make his film into a homage to Alfred Hitchcock by also borrowing plot elements from other films like Vertigo and Dial M for Murder (and of course setting the film on the set of a low budget horror flick).
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 8, 2008 in Videogames
I remember seeing one of the early home versions of Pong as a child It may have been the Magnavox Odyssey version), it was very crude but in a way that was what made the game so charming. It wasn’t just the fact that it was a video game, but also the idea that you could have something that might belong at an arcade at home was in and of itself very exciting. But even though Pong made a big impression on me I had no idea just how iconic that the title would become, so it’s always amazing for me to see how people are still reinterpreting this classic game:
“I’ve always wanted to make my own wrist watch, but I had never gotten around to doing it. I love the Buro Vormkrijgers Pong Clock, but still didn’t build anything. Then after I ran in to David Forbes at the 2006 Maker Faire and got to see his amazing Nixie-tube watch* first-hand, the gears in my head started turning. I found a neat display in a catalog that was about the right size, and ordered it on a whim. I hooked up the screen to a computer, and it was so cool looking I knew that I had to make a Pong Watch! The basic idea – from Buro Vormkrijgers – is genius: each minute the right side scores a point, and each hour the left side scores a point. The effect is that the score is the time.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 8, 2008 in Star Wars
It’s funny I remember being a hardcore Star Wars fanboy back in the day, but I never recall Yoda owning a snake! Maybe the snake was left over from some other toy that Kenner was pushing in 1981? I’d bet that Lucas film would never let you get away with this merchandising reinterpretation today:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 7, 2008 in Japanese TV
I just love the low budget look of Kamen Rider you can just tell from looking at the show that they were having fun filming it back in the day (and what’s shown above is from the original series which ran from 1971 until 1973).
If you look at the 2nd part of the video below what’s interesting is that they show a short clip stage play that was based on the series — and not only is the audience packed but they’re eating up every moment of the characters showing off their moves in from a sparsely decorated tin foil decorated set:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 7, 2008 in Japanese TV
I can’t get that annoying Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea song out of my head! So to cure myself I found the above silly music video (don’t you just love that fuzzy dog character?) is from the NHK show Kids World. And if that wasn’t cute enough for you here’s a little dance number with a kitty theme:
Obviously this show is aimed at very young kids, but what impressed me is the quality of design in the series (so much cooler than say something like Barney). Check out this nice animation which is a segment from the show:
Shown above is a page from a manga that tells the story of the founding of Apple Computer — you can see Woz in the first panel, Jobs in the center and the Apple ][ flying through outer space at the bottom! From my crude Google translation it looks like manga is from 1984 and was titled Korokorokomikku and included as a separate booklet which was inserted into a computer programming magazine of that era.
Special thanks to Chris Liendo for finding this link.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 6, 2008 in Videogames
Not to toot my own horn but my design firm just launched a website for the upcoming videogame Goosebumps HorrorLand. I’ve had to sit on my hat these last few months, but as an insider it’s been very cool to see up close how Scholastic went about the process for bringing the classic book series Goosebumps to the Wii (and also to the PlayStation2 and Nintendo DS). Here’s a video trailer to give you a taste:
“We spotted this Hello Kitty Action DJ Speaker and were unable to resist the overwhelming cuteness any further. Hello Kitty in a DJ booth with a speaker in the base is a pretty cool juxtaposition of dance music and Kitty. She even bops her head back and forth with the music. Plug in your iPod or similar music playing device and observe the cuteness for yourself. If you’re really looking to give in and completely “cute out” we recommend the pink version. Hey, we won’t judge you… we’re already there ourselves.”
By the way the definitive version of Our Lips Are sealed is in fact by Fun Boy Three.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 5, 2008 in Animation
The first commercial in this series isn’t animated (although it is very cute) but the two spots that follow feature classic 50s mod art animation. This style was inspired by UPA cartoons from the early 50s which were very modernist and minimalist (they were a reaction to the stylization of Disney cartoons which were getting very realistic by the late 40s).
It’s frankly depressing watching a Vice Presidential candidate who just doesn’t get that “Creationism” isn’t science (well maybe science fiction) — yet that’s just a symbol for the sad state of funding for public education. The last time the United States got serious about teaching science was during the when the Russians launched Sputnik in the late 50s. Well if you’d like to do something about this situation please take some time out and get involved with this effort:
“In the year 2009, the world will celebrate the International Year of Astronomy as it commemorates the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s use of a telescope to study the skies, and Kepler’s publication of Astronomia Nova. 2009 is also the anniversary of many other historic events in science, including Huygen’s 1659 publication of Systema Saturnium.
This will be modern astronomy’s quadricentennial, and the 2009 Year of Astronomy will be an international celebration of numerous astronomical and scientific milestones. Events are still being planned, and you are invited to tell us how you want to celebrate. This page is a product of the U.S. 2009 IYA team, and we want to help you make 2009 a year long celebration to remember.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 4, 2008 in Animation
Shown above is an interview with animator José Cuauhtemoc “Bill” Meléndez who just passed away. Most people will remember Meléndez for his work on Peanuts but he was much more than that in terms of animation history: For example he helped animate Gerald McBoing-Boing for UPA in 1951 which made limited TV animation possible. We’ll miss you Bill:
“Bill Melendez, the animator who gave life to Snoopy, Charlie Brown and other “Peanuts” characters in scores of movies and TV specials, has died. He was 91. Melendez’s nearly seven decades as a professional animator began in 1938 when he was hired by Walt Disney Studios and worked on Mickey Mouse cartoons and classic animated features such as “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia.” He went on to animate TV specials such as “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and was the voice of Snoopy, who never spoke intelligible words but issued expressive howls, sighs and sobs.”
Below: Now that I look back at it A Charlie Brown Christmas might just be one of the best Christmas movies ever made (or top five at the very least!):
Part 2: In Japan public transportation stops running at around 12 AM and starts again around 5 AM. That makes for a predicament if one is out late away from where they are staying. I’ve been trying out some scenarios of what one can do over a few recent trips to Japan. One obvious solution would be to just pay for a taxi back. Last year I tried that. Basically to get in a taxi and (in theory) not go anywhere the minimum fare is over $6. Helping to reinforce the possible validity that taxi companies had politicians make sure no public transportation runs at night is that taxis have an additional 30% late night surcharge.
It’s often quoted that a daytime taxi from Narita Airport to downtown tokyo is somewhere over $300. It’s not a case of tourists being tricked what supposedly happens to some foreign tourists in America. That would be the normal fare, though I guess most times someone states the $300 taxi fare factoid they neglect to mention the airport is well over an hour from downtown tokyo. It had to do with the older Tokyo airport Haneda (you’ll see it in old movies) becoming too small over the years, but not soon enough to be able to buy enough land closer to Tokyo. As a comparison, the cheapest train to tokyo is around $12, though a lot of luggage might be awkward and it’s not that fast. There are many more trains and busses in the $20 to $30 range though that are direct and can deal with luggage.
The 12 AM last run for trains means that shows at clubs typically start at 7 PM and end around 10:30 so people who live further away can get home. A fair number of clubs with space for dancing will open (or reopen after a live band set) around 11 PM and have DJ sets until dawn. This is especially true on Friday and Saturday nights.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 3, 2008 in Star Trek
I don’t care what the hell J.J. Abrams is cooking up with the next movie — you just know in your heart of hearts that it will never be 25% as cool as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. And why is that? Because whatever man child/pretty boy they cast as Kirk, he’ll never pass the test unless he can scream KHAAAAAAAAN! and really mean it:
Oh and by the way if you want to pre-order The Wrath of Khan Phaser you should go here. What’s cool is that like the phaser in the movie you can remove the type-1 phaser from the larger assembly (which is quite useful for stalking casting executives).
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 3, 2008 in Japanese TV
Shown above is J-pop diva and actress Kaela Kimura (木村カエラ) in an advert for Lucido-L which is a line of hair care products. Kaela was born in Tokyo and her mom is Japanese and her dad is British and she started modeling back in 2002 for the the Japanese idol magazine Seventeen. I really like her swinging 60s look in this ad and the nice use of color. Below is a “making of” spot on the commercial:
