What’s sad to me about this trailer is that director Terry Gilliam has to do such a hard sell for himself to sell the film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Even if Brazil was the only film that Gilliam had made, we should all be waiting on line eager to see his next epic. Gilliam doesn’t always give you what you expect, but he’s always taking chances with his work and I wish there was more support in terms of marketing dollars to sell this.
The other thing that I love about Gilliam is that he’s always doing something original and interesting — it’s sad but perhaps in an age of movies that are remakes, based on old TV shows or comic book titles that’s why Hollywood doesn’t honor him. However I dare say that’s why he’s earned my respect and admiration. It’s sad but I predict long after Spider-Man 3 is a footnote that future generation will look back on Gilliam films with the love that they deserve. I beg all to support Terry today and not wait to rediscover him far in the future after his obituary is printed.
I know I’m old fashioned, but if you’re going to take 007 and force him to act as a peddler the least you can do is to associate him with luxury brands — but sadly the product placement being pushed for the next James Bond flick (Quantum of Solace which comes out in November) is Coke Zero. Would Mr. Bond like some fries with that?
If you’re in NYC you may get a chance to spot these tall bronze sculptures of Miffy and Hello Kitty at 53rd Street and Park Avenue which are designed by artist Tom Sachs.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 12, 2008 in Animation
It’s an anime series about a cat. So you’re asking “and what else?” Nope that’s it — it’s about nothing else but seeing the world through the eyes of a little lost kitty! Chi’s Sweet Home (チーズスイートホーム) is based on a manga by Konami Kanata, the episodes are very short and have been airing since March of this year. By the way the word “Chi” in Japanese translates to “pee” which becomes the cat’s nickname after being adopted by family (Chi got her nickname while being housebroken). The series is a must watch if your cat fancying fanboy or fangurl.
This is an amazing interview with Ridley Scott, the man behind two of my fanboys favorites: Blade Runner and Alien. It’s amazing to think not just of the scope but the sheer scale of projects that Scott has tackled during the last thirty years. You can tell from this interview just how much he loves his craft, and I’m very impressed with background with fine arts and photography as a starting point. Extra points to Scott for mentioning my old teacher Henry Wolf (who was a brilliant graphic designer and photographer). It’s amazing to think that Scott almost became a fashion photographer.
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).
