“Are you a Lebowski achiever? Let’s hope so. After all, it would be totally ‘un-Dude’ of you not to be. Walter and The Dude are here, and they brought their little dog, too! Relive all the fun and laughter from The Big Lebowski with these cool action figures. They combine the stylized look of ‘urban vinyl’ with a little Lebowski fun. This hilarious set includes 2 individually packaged 8-inch figures: 1x Walter and 1x The Dude. Each features an outfit with real cloth pieces and includes various movie-accurate accessories even removable sunglasses! Achieve your desires by buying these characters today! Jeffrey ‘The Dude’ Lebowski is a real laid-back kind of guy. He enjoys ‘bowling, driving, (and having) the occasional acid flashback.’ In the classic film The Big Lebowski, this humble pacifist and his bowling buddies become entangled in a web of embezzlement, supposed kidnapping, and White Russians.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 31, 2008 in Comic Books
When I first came across this I thought it was a parody, but it seems to be real! Here is the description from Alrugo Entertainment:
“Unearthed for the first time in 43 years and lovingly restored at Maxischermo Studios Milan, this rare theatrical trailer for the 1964 Italian classic ‘Italian Spiderman’ is a real treat. Featuring Franco Franchetti of ‘Mondo Sexo’ fame in his last ever role before being killed in a spear fishing accident in 1965. Director, Gianfranco Gatti, reminisces on ‘Italian Spiderman’; “I have made some mistakes in my life…bad, bad mistakes”.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 30, 2008 in Star Trek
Humans smile with so little provocation! It’s 20th Century Earth and the Bangles need a director for their music video “Going Down To Liverpool” (a cover by Katrina & the Waves) and the choice is logical — Leonard Nimoy. Well that and also band member Susanna Hoffs knew Nimoy’s son Adam (it’s who you know in Hollywood sometimes). By the way Adam Nimoy would go on to direct episodes of Star trek the Next Generation and Babylon 5. And least we forget Leonard Nimoy’s own musical roots:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 29, 2008 in Japanese TV
This is a series of short surrealistic (but slightly silly) interstitial films from 1999 by the popular Japanese rock bandL’Arc-en-Ciel. The videos were shown in-between music videos on their DVD collection Chronicle. What’s odd is that even though this video is quite avant-garde, their music is much more conventional J-Pop.
“A Jedi “church” has been born in a galaxy far far away – North Wales. The Holyhead chapter of the self-styled Jedi Church, which claims up to 400,000 members worldwide, has sprung up thanks to brothers Barney and Daniel Jones, both Star Wars obsessives.
The “church” is only one of a handful around the planet, said hairdresser Barney, 26, the Anglesey Order Minister, also known as Master Jonba Hehol. “Some people think it will be quite interesting but lots of people will ridicule us because it seems quite nerdy but we’ve had a good reaction so far,” he said.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 29, 2008 in Star Trek
Shown above is a 1966 interview William Shatner on the set of the Star Trek episode What Are Little Girls Made Of? Below is another segment with Leonard Nimoy:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 28, 2008 in Comic Books
Above: A panel from the French comic book Sky Doll.
Over the last few months I’ve been enjoying watching the growth in popularity of manga with with the American market. However there are other places besides Japan that have a great tradition of producing amazing comic books — one of those places is France, yet very few French comics make their way over here. So I was very pleased to read that Marvel is doing a joint publishing venture with Soleil:
“Some of Soleil’s most popular releases, such as Sky Doll, Universal War One, Samurai and Le Fleau Des Dieux, make their English language debuts beginning this May. The first release will be Sky Doll #1 (of 3), a timely socio-political thriller in which a young android must decide her destiny by challenging the very government—and faith—that has controlled her life.
Soleil appeared on the comic scene in 1988 and quickly moved into publishing both classic comics by hot, young talent and series targeted towards younger audiences before buying great classics (Mandrake, Tarzan). Publishing science fiction, heroic fantasy, westerns and action comics from superstars such as Arleston, Tarquin, Mourier, Crisse, Swolfs and Ange, in addition to promising young talent, Soleil quickly established itself with a catalogue of powerful graphic novels.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 28, 2008 in Star Wars
This is a nice behind the scenes look at the making of the upcoming video game The Force Unleashed by LucasArts, which will be released in the Summer. What I love about LucasArts is amount of detail that they put into everything that they work on, check out this preproduction artwork for the game:
There’s some haunted quality that I find when I look into the eyes of a Blythe doll, and yet this series of photos created by Takahito Iguchi of real people with Blythe heads is even more surrealistic:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 27, 2008 in Science
As a kid I grew up looking at how much cooler the Concorde (or at least the early prototypes of it) looked next to the old fashioned jumbo jets of the era, I just sort of assumed that in the future supersonic air travel would rule the day. Well sadly it’s the year 2008 and the Concorde is history, although maybe supersonic air travel isn’t quite dead yet:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 26, 2008 in Comic Books
So I’m looking through the Marvel Comics offerings for April 2008: Dull, Dull, and oh yes Friggin’ Dull! And then out of the blue I spy the above cover by Gary Panter who did some amazing work back in the 80s for RAW Magazine, and also did a great cover for an album by Frank Zappa too. The cover art is for Omega: The Unknown #7 which stars a super hero who resorts to drawing comic books to solve his problems. Someone at Marvel has some good taste! This issue is now on my “must buy” list.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 25, 2008 in Japanese TV
This is a commercial for Softbank in Japan — the talking dog is cute, no? It’s for the White Plan Family Discount for a cell phone service. I like the shot where the dog is hanging out at home after class…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 25, 2008 in Comic Books
It’s just so easy to get cynical when it comes to artwork that features a well known super hero. I’ve seen so many comic book covers that try to pull it off, but it always looks so damn silly to see an adult jumping around in tights. It’s because of this reason that Alex Ross blows my socks off, he always manages to eliminate my suspension of disbelief with these old school cartoon characters brought to life. It’s not just the lighting and the powerful use of color, it’s the poses and facial expressions which make you feel like you’re looking at an super hero. Shown above is a sample from Comic Book Cover Portfolio No. 2: The Justice Cover Collection which will hit stores in September.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 24, 2008 in Science
From Brave New World to Blade Runner artificial life has always been a staple of science fiction, so it’s interesting to see the first baby steps in that direction:
“An important step has been taken in the quest to create a synthetic lifeform. A US team reports in Science magazine how it replicated the entire DNA code from a common bacterium in the laboratory. The group hopes eventually to use engineered genomes to make organisms that can produce clean fuels and take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 24, 2008 in Animation
Shown above are animated commercials from the mid to late 60s for Milkbone Dog Treats, Puma softdrink, Standard Oil, a public service Voting spot (done in a Terry Gilliam style), Marathon (starring the characters from the comic strip B.C.), Levi’s, Hamilton Watches (spot by R.O. Blechman), Fritos, Graf’s Diet Sodas, Hanes, a Buick dealership, and cherry flavored Chocks. And here’s another set from the same era:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 24, 2008 in Science
Up until this point you’ve need to be a software millionaire to travel into outer space, I can’t imagine that this will be cheap but this fanboy hopes that the cost will keep coming down:
“Burt Rutan took the cloak off of his new spacecraft on Wednesday. “Mr. Rutan, the creator of SpaceShipOne, the first privately-financed craft to carry a human into space, traveled to New York to show detailed models of the bigger SpaceShipTwo and its carrier airplane, WhiteKnightTwo.
“2008 will really be the year of the spaceship,” said Sir Richard Branson, the British serial entrepreneur, at the heavily attended press conference at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Sir Richard, who founded a company, Virgin Galactic, that promises to take tourists on brief trips to the edge of space, was there to show off the sleek pod of a spacecraft and its spidery carrier plane.”
…below are two images from the Virgin Galactic website, click on them to see them at their full size:
Hollywood is filled with tales of tragedy and excess and Heath Ledger is the newest in a long list of lives cut short in the world of entertainment. At only 28 years of age the young Aussie was just coming into his own as an actor. With his sudden explosion into the big time with Ten Things I Hate About You Heath managed to string together a series of successful roles including A Knight’s Tale, The Brothers Grimm and The Order .
I never knew that Cookie Monster was such an AC/DC fan! This Charlie Brown themed metal video below isn’t quite as clever as the Cookie Monster one, but sill cute:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 22, 2008 in Animation
It’s quite clever how this commercial for Contac in Japan features 3D stop motion animation characters drawing 2D animation. The pill character is called Mr. Contac and is from Osaka, Japan. He’s been featured on all sorts of cute merchandise like this phone strap:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 22, 2008 in Science
Pictured above is a November 22, 1964 photo of William Sponsler (click on the image to see it at full size), a designer of the Lunar Surface Vehicle at Northrop Space Laboratories. In the photo he’s checking the mechanism of a one-sixth scale model as it moves over a rubbled replica of moon surface. Over five years later on July 31, 1971 the first lunar rover would make it debut during the Apollo 15 mission.
