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Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 22, 2014 in Cinema, Comic Books 
Sony Pictures has released the final trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which features about as much bombastic action and special effects as you can fit into a 2 minute and 40 second timeframe. It definitely looks like Spider-Man! I hope it will be better than the first film, but the huge amount of villains does make me wary. We have heard that the Rhino is barely in the film though (apparently only 5 minutes) so not only does that lighten up the load, it also means that we’ve probably seen a third of the total footage of the Rhino in trailers and teasers! Check out the full trailer below. Read more…
Tags: Marvel, The Amazing Spider-Man
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 21, 2014 in Cinema 
For a while, many Pacific Rim fans worried that the film wouldn’t get a second chance after its poor domestic performance. Thankfully, a huge opening internationally brought in a huge pull for the film. $411 million isn’t too shabby, but we hadn’t heard anything for a while. Now, Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull said in a recent interview that Pacific Rim 2 is pretty likely, saying they’re “certainly open to it.” In fact, he listed several other big movies that Pacific Rim bested in the box office that did receive sequels, such as Superman Returns, Star Trek, Batman Begins, and Fast and the Furious. Guillermo del Toro is currently filming Crimson Peak, so we’ll see where he goes after that! Read more…
Tags: Pacific Rim
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 21, 2014 in Cinema 
Here’s an exciting rumor to start your weekend off. We last heard some bad news about Ghostbusters 3: Ivan Reitman, the director of the previous two, was stepping down as director of the third, instead opting to stay as a producer. He said the passing of Harold Ramis put the film in a new light for him, which is understandable. Still, fans were saddened and hoped for the best. Nikki Finke is now saying that Sony is looking for a new director(s) and have been eyeing Phil Lord and Chris Miller, hot off of their success in The LEGO Movie. Now that’s a good pick! Their skills would be perfectly suited to a Ghostbusters film. But which would the studios prefer they first tackle — a second LEGO Movie or a third Ghostbusters? Exciting times! Read more…
Tags: Ghostbusters
Posted by Bob Muir on Mar 20, 2014 in Tech, Videogames 
The Oculus Rift has been in development for a while and is getting close to release, but Sony must figure it can do it better. They’ve announced Project Morpheus, a prototype virtual reality device that is being developed for PS4. While much is up in the air, including the design and specs, here’s what the prototype can do. It has a 1080p display at 1000hz with a 90-degree field of view. There’s 360-degree movement, 15mm eye relief, and support for forward prediction. So far, there’s a VR version of God of War being developed, as well as a special build of the recent Thief game, though it will only be key sections, not the entire game. EVE Valkyrie is playable on the dev kit right now, and there are two games called The Deep and The Castle; to complete the VR experience, you can use the PlayStation Move controller in The Castle. It’s a cool idea, but I do wonder why Sony needs their own VR device instead of working with the Oculus Rift. Will the market support a separate VR headset for each platform? Will it even support one? Read more…
Tags: PS4, Sony, Virtual Reality
Posted by Bob Muir on Mar 20, 2014 in Cinema 
The Giver was one of my favorite novels as a kid. It could very well have been my first dystopian novel, and the themes were thought-provoking. A film adaptation is coming August 15, 2014, and the first trailer looks fairly solid. There’s maybe a bit too much influence from The Hunger Games, because futuristic dystopian stories where kids rebel against the way of the world are hot right now. But hey: Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes…with a cast that good, I could overlook whatever Taylor Swift is doing in there. My bigger issue is a major one: The Giver should be in black-and-white, not color. Read more…
Tags: The Giver
Posted by Bob Muir on Mar 19, 2014 in Animation, Cinema 
Of all the films that Pixar is made, I was always somewhat disappointed that The Incredibles, one of my personal faves, never got a sequel. Sure, Toy Story put them on the map, and Cars prints money for Disney’s coffers, but I thought The Incredibles had the most sequel potential of any of them. (Not that I need a sequel, mind you; I just wanted one instead of sequels to their other movies). Lo and behold, Disney CEO Bob Iger just confirmed that Pixar is working on a sequel. Speaking at the annual shareholders meeting, Iger shared that Brad Bird, who not only wrote and directed the first film but also voiced Edna Mode, was already working on the story. It hasn’t been confirmed that he will write or direct, but hopefully he does return for at least one of those roles. Until then, all that’s left to do is speculate wildly. I want more team-ups with Samuel L. Jackson’s Frozone! Read more…
Tags: Disney, Pixar, The Incredibles
Posted by Bob Muir on Mar 19, 2014 in Animation, Cinema 
20 Century Fox’s Blue Sky Studios is making a big-budget Peanuts film, based on Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and all the other classic characters created by Charles M. Schulz. Considering how many other modern animated/half-animated films have come before and sucked, it’s reasonable to be skeptical. But wait a second — this teaser looks good! While the animation nut in me pines for 2D animation, even I can admit how limited the Peanuts cartoons were, so it’s not like there wasn’t room to grow. This animation style, while done with CG, does a great job of retaining Schulz’s original designs and art style while mixing in faux-stop-motion animation. With a script by Schulz’s son Craig, Schulz’s grandson Bryan, and Cornelius Uliano (who simply has a cool name), there’s certainly potential for this movie to duck the trend of awful modern animated reboots and rehashes. Here’s hoping! Peanuts will be released on November 6, 2015. Read more…
Tags: 20th Century Fox, Charles Schulz, Charlie Brown, Peanuts
Posted by Bob Muir on Mar 18, 2014 in Anime, Videogames 
We still may not have gotten an official release for Persona 3 The Movie: Chapter 1, Spring of Birth yet, but that won’t stop the second movie from coming out in Japan! The multi-movie adaptation of Persona 3, Atlus’s successful refresh of their sub-franchise that led to the juggernaut Persona 4, is rolling on. On June 7, Persona 3 The Movie: Chapter 2, Midsummer Knight’s Dream will be released. As with the past movie, the art direction looks great, just dripping with atmosphere. Maybe this one will be a bit more interesting now that the plot is already underway. Read more…
Tags: Atlus, Persona 3
Posted by Bob Muir on Mar 18, 2014 in Videogames 
You could argue that there have been three main “eras” of Konami’s Castlevania series. The first era contains the classic 2D action games that started on the NES. The second era began with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which redefined the series with Metroid-like progression and RPG elements, and ended with Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. The third era includes the middling Castlevania: Lords of Shadow games and whatever other random entries were released while Konami tried to figure out what it wanted to do with the series. Those second era “Metroidvania” games are easily some of the best in the series, only out-done by the level design in a few of the earlier action games, and most of them can be traced to producer Koji “IGA” Igarashi, the cowb0y-hat-wearing, whip-wielding man who was the heart behind Symphony of the Night. But it looks like he’ll never return to Castlevania, as he has announced his departure from Konami. Read more…
Tags: Castlevania, Konami
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 17, 2014 in Star Wars 
Here’s some awesome casting news: the wonderful, Academy Award-winner Lupita Nyong’o (fresh off of her win for 12 Years A Slave) is reportedly up for a role in Star Wars Episode VII. Both the Latino Review and The Hollywood Reporter are confirming this story, say that she’s been speaking to J.J. Abrams about a part not related to the original trilogy. LR says she’ll probably be playing a Sith, but THR says she’ll be a descendant of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I suppose there’s always the possibility she could be both! Nyongo’os representatives, when called, said that they’re “not allowed to talk about that.” Well then! That’s about as much as a confirmation as we’re gonna get, aren’t we? Read more…
Tags: Episode VII
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 17, 2014 in Hobbies and Collections, Science 
Man, there’s just a bountiful buffet of LEGO media online right now. Everyone wants to cash in on The LEGO Movie, I imagine. But here’s a world record LEGO robot — yes, robot — that is the fastest Rubik’s Cube ‘bot in the land. The machine is called the CUBESTORMER 3, and has obtained the world record for solving a Rubik’s Cube in 3.253 seconds. This beats out their previous record and robot, the CUBESTORMER 2 at 5.35 seconds. Not only that, it beat the world record for a human time, with is 5.55 seconds. That’s pretty impressive! Watch the LEGO machine go to work at lightning speed below. Read more…
Tags: Lego
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 16, 2014 in Videogames 
If you’ve ever wanted your own titan from Titanfall, this is as probably as close as you’re going to get! To promote the release of the game, CJ Berg and Daniel’s Wood Land were commissioned to put together a life-size titan. It’s currently making its way across the UK, at various launch events for photo opportunities. SlashGear spoke with the creators about how they made the beast (lots of foam!) and their process of working with Respawn, too. Of course, the article is lavished with a multitude of awesome pictures. I’ve included a few below, but check out the full thing here! Of course, all it does is just make us want a real one! Read more…
Tags: Robots, Titanfall
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 16, 2014 in Fandom, Hobbies and Collections 
LEGO Simpsons and The LEGO Movie combine in a LEGO video! How much LEGO can the internet possibly fit into one video? I don’t know, but this video is a big contender. Yes, this is a Simpsons couch gag… made from LEGO… also featuring characters from The LEGO Movie. It’s pretty clever, and is a good use of the Simpsons house set, too. I suppose this post is also a good place to mention that there will be a LEGO Simpsons episode in the near future — May 4th to be exact. And yes, the whole episode will be done in LEGO. So that should be pretty entertaining! But until then, this fan rendition will do nicely! Read more…
Tags: Lego, The LEGO Movie, The Simpsons
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 15, 2014 in Videogames 
This is something a bit off the beaten path: an aluminum NES. Yes, that’s right. Analogue Interactive, the company that made that NeoGeo MVS arcade system into a walnut-clad console, is making another system, and this time it’s an NES, called the Analogue Nt. The system is made from a solid block of aluminum, so it resembles an Apple product more than an Nintendo one. It boasts four controller ports, slots for both Japanese and US cartridges, and can output via RGB, component, S-video, or composite. Analogue claims there is no emulation going on, so one wonders how this is all possible (perhaps they reverse-engineered everything). Price and a release date are unknown, but will be revealed by the end of the month. Read more…
Tags: Nintendo
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 15, 2014 in Videogames 
Sony likes to often interview indie devs that are bringing games to Playstation platforms and post about it on their blog. Recently, they interviewed Heart Machine, the group of devs behind Hyper Light Drifter, the wildly successful Kickstarter game (PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, Vita). As part of their post on the Playstation Blog, they’ve also uploaded a new trailer that features gameplay and a plethora of gorgeous pixelated visuals. I love the sharp, colorful art style that Hyper Light Drifter has — and the ruins of a war gone by are a great setting. There’s more details about how the game will play out and what their plans are here. And check out the trailer below! Read more…
Tags: Hyper Light Drifter, Kickstarter
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 14, 2014 in Television 
HBO has been ramping up for the April 6th premiere of Game of Thrones season 4, and what better way to excite people than to remind them of all the tragedy so far?! Yes, they’ve released their season 3 recap, which covers almost everything that happened last year (and has some actor interviews as well), including the infamous Red Wedding. If you haven’t watched the show thus far, it might not make the most sense, and obviously I want to recommend that you watch it all anyway, but not everyone has time to watch 3 seasons of a TV show before April 6th. Either way, it’s a great refresher! Check it out below. Read more…
Tags: Game of Thrones, HBO
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 14, 2014 in Cinema, Comic Books 
Here’s a little pile of interesting Marvel news for all you Kevin Feige fanboys out there. We knew for a while that Marvel had a movie scheduled on the same date as Man of Steel vs. Batman, but we didn’t know what film Marvel would match up against it… until now. It’s Captain America 3. That’s a pretty ballsy move! It just shows how confident Marvel is in their battle versus DC. In other Marvel news, Kevin Feige also brought up Hulk and Hawkeye, mentioning that they’ll have significantly bigger parts in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Also mentioned was the potential for Agent Coulson to return again — and we’ll apparently get more details soon. Let’s hope! Read more…
Tags: Avengers: Age of Ultron, captain america, Marvel
Posted by Bob Muir on Mar 13, 2014 in Tech 
Since moving across the country, the requests to fix my parents tech problems have been drastically reduced. Still, I can only imagine how frustrating it is for them to have a problem and have no idea what is causing it. Mike Lacher has explored this in a piece for New York Magazine, and now it has been animated with narration by H. Jon Benjamin (Archer, Bob’s Burgers). When an old couple’s WiFi breaks, it’s up to the son-in-law to fix it. It’s a straightforward story told with all the bombast of an epic quest in ye olden days. I bet this is how my parents viewed it when I taught them to just restart their computer. Read more…
Tags: Fantasy, The Internet
Posted by Bob Muir on Mar 13, 2014 in Fandom, Videogames 
Have you tried out Grand Theft Auto Online? It’s the multiplayer component of Grand Theft Auto V, and it lets you roll around Los Santos with friends, taking on missions with your custom characters and fighting other players. Ideally, you’d get a good mix of progression and mayhem. In practice, it’s very easy to have all your plans go awry due to other players being crazy — you know, the way most players don’t even finish a GTA game’s story and just use it as a sandbox to play around in. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it results in moments like those found in YouTube user Jameserton’s video below. I’m not a huge multiplayer gamer, so I’m okay with sticking to the singleplayer in game’s like this. But I can’t deny the chaotic experience makes for a funny video. Read more…
Tags: Grand Theft Auto
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 12, 2014 in Videogames 
Frog Fractions was one of my favorite experiences from last year. It appeared to be simple on the surface, but after a little prodding, revealed a grandiose labyrinth of hidden gameplay and bizarre content that made you yell at the screen is disbelief. It’s really hard to describe, so if you haven’t played it, go do so now, it’s free. Anyway, this brings us to a Kickstarter for Frog Fractions 2. The trick is, you’re paying for a surprise. The release date for the game will not be announced. It’ll just come out at some point, and people will have to find it. The developer says, “It will not be called ‘Frog Fractions 2.’ It will probably be called something like ‘Lost Kingdom: Reckoning,’ by Fork Bomb LLC or ‘Turbo Finance 2015’ by Vespenta Holdings. Does that Russian flight sim on Desura look suspicious to you? Better play it just to make sure!” Amazing. Watch the equally amazing announcement video below and then pledge here. Read more…
Tags: frog fractions, Indie Games, Kickstarter
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 12, 2014 in Hobbies and Collections 
People will continue to make amazing things with LEGO, even until the end of time. I’m certain of it. AFOL JK Brickworks has put together a working LEGO computer keyboard using the pad from an older keyboard, then sandwiching it in between various bricks and building a rack for the keys to rest upon. It looks simple from the outside, but when you see the inside and framework, it becomes apparent how much more went into it. Watch the full video below, where he pulls it apart and shows you the innards and how the whole contraption works! Read more…
Tags: Lego
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 11, 2014 in Hobbies and Collections, Star Wars 
Wow, talk about impressive: LEGO just announced this massive Jawa Sandcrawler, complete with an abundance of minifigures, droids, hidden features, and panels. The set is 9 inches high, 18 inches long, and 6 inches wide, packs over 3200 pieces, and will retail for $300. Yikes! Still, it looks to be a pretty impressive set, and I am kind of surprised we’re even seeing a Sandcrawler model this big! It’d definitely be quite the display piece, and it looks like there’s plenty for kids (or big kids) to enjoy with a droid winch, several secret compartments, a cockpit, and a mini-vehicle. Check out more images below along with LEGO’s designer video. Read more…
Tags: Lego
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 11, 2014 in Television 
Now that True Detective is finished, it’s time to start getting excited for the next big show: Game of Thrones, season four! After the tragedy and incredible breakdowns by fans last season, I can’t wait to see the reactions people have this time around. Granted, I’m sitting up on my “I read the books” platform, but it’s still incredibly enjoyable to watch it all play out. This latest trailer teases a bunch of big storylines, namely Dany’s ever-growing dragons and the new threats from Dorne. Avoid the internet if you don’t want anything spoiled, because this is going to be an intense season. Read more…
Tags: Game of Thrones, HBO
Posted by Ben Huber on Mar 10, 2014 in Cinema, Fandom 
I know a few people who found Jurassic Park too scary when they were kids. My girlfriend was one of them! I, on the other hand, loved seeing dinosaurs on the big screen. Perhaps this little edit from We Are Camera Studio, a little studio in Thailand, will help her enjoy it a bit more. Rather than having velociraptors scampering through the kitchen scene, wouldn’t kittens be a bit more fun? Or at least, less terrifying! I was going to make a joke about dinosaurs actually having feathers, but that didn’t really work. I’m pretty sure fur wasn’t a typical dinosaur outfit. Check out the adorable video below! Read more…
Tags: Jurassic Park
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