As I’m lucky to love what I do for a living I don’t often get a chance to cut out of work early, but yesterday I was feeling pretty dead so I made an early exit from my studio. I’m also lucky as my office is just a few blocks north of SoHo here in NYC, so taking advantage of the daylight I made a stop at Kidrobot which is located at 118 Prince Street to have a look around. On the off chance you don’t know it Kidrobot is THE store in NYC to see urban toys, it’s a small shop but what it lacks in scale it makes up for in spirit (in fact i always feel inspired after visiting the place). Here’s a glimpse of this designer toy oasis: Read more…
Posted by Guest Author on May 6, 2009 in Star Trek
Editor’s Note: In this column film critic Joe Strike gives us his first impressions on Star Trek XI. Warning this might contain a few spoilers and ruin a maximum virgin film watching experience:
Heavy, heavy, HEAVYSTlogo– looks like it was carved out of highly polished dwarf star material, probably weighs about the same… music is pretty heavy too: Giacchino wants us to know this is an intense movie… Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 6, 2009 in Star Trek
So I guess the torch has been passed? This video from April 25th shows a meeting between William Shatner and Chris Pine. The clip is from Shatner and he looks very cool about the whole thing, but it still makes me just a tad sad that he won’t have some sort of bit part in this film. My own theory more and more is that Paramount was too cheap. Read more…
In this article New York based artists Nick Kent gives us a riveting world tour of all things Rube Goldberg:
I was browsing Japanese DVDs at a bookstore the other day when between the anime and live concert discs I spotted strange wooden contraptions on the covers of a pair of DVDs.
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 6, 2009 in Star Trek
Directed by Dan Meth this clever parody film Trek Yourself hits the spot — in a strange way his take on having the new film be a sort of Revenge of the Nerds is almost as appealing to me as seeing spaceships blow up.
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 5, 2009 in Star Trek
The latest Star Trek XI spots are out — not much new footage but plenty of quotes from the likes of Newsweek, Rolling Stone and Film.com? To be honest I’m more likely to trust a review from Ain’t It Cool News rather than a dead tree publication at this point, but then again I am a fanboy…Read more…
The upcoming Star Trek DAC game (for the Xbox 360, PlayStation3, PC) is all about battles between the Federation and the Romulans. From my understanding it’s a multiplayer game so there isn’t much of a plot to it, but the video above and the screenshots look pretty impressive: Read more…
And why is today Star Wars day? Because some ingenious fanboys re-engineered the catch phrase “May the Force Be With You!” to “May the 4th Be With You!”. You can follow Star Wars day on Twitter…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 4, 2009 in Japanese TV
I kid you not — Samurai Sentai Shinkenger is the 33rd Super Sentai Series created by Toei to sell an never ending tide of toys! Since the 70s the Kamen Rider formula hasn’t changed much, but why mess with success? In fact not only has this series done well in Japan but there are still American kids buying Power Ranger toys years after that series came here in 1993 (which looks quite primitive to the special effects in Samurai Sentai Shinkenger). Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 4, 2009 in Star Wars
I’m a vegetarian, but this exclusive preview of the Star Trek XI toys make me want to visit Burger King to get my hands on these totally rad trinkets. In a sad way they sort of remind me of the Muppet Babies which was my first reaction to seeing trailers of the show — but with any luck there will be spaceships and enough things blowing up to make up for that…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 3, 2009 in Comic Books
As an art school graduate I admit that I really do judge a book by its cover — and this is even more true with comic books, because if you can’t get the cover right chances are no one cared about what went on the page. But in the case of Mr. Stuffins by I’ve been proved wrong, which is why I put some of the interior artwork at the lead of this article, because my fear is that the cover art might drive away my fellow fanboys (and fangurls) away from a comic book that looks pretty promising. Read more…
District 9 sort of reminds me of the 1984 TV series V and the film Brother from Another Planet (which also came out in ’84). The plot of District 9 features an extraterrestrial race that forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth. The film will be released on August 14th and is produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neil Blomkamp who has a background in short films and advertisements. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 1, 2009 in Star Trek
This is some amazing new footage (posted with permission) which shows J.J. Abrams in action directing the new Star Trek XI film. I like the little touch in the bar scene of having the poster of Neil Armstrong on the moon, and there are also a few new details of the Starfleet Academy that I hadn’t seen before. Also worth looking at is this interview with a few of the folks working on the film from about a month ago: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 1, 2009 in Animation
Basquash! (バスカッシュ! ) is a sports/sci fi anime title of sorts — it’s not too often you see those two genres mixed up so you get characters playing basketball with their giant robots. Although I like what little I’ve seen of this show so far which was created by French animator Thomas Romain and Shoji Kawamori (who worked on one of my favorite anime films Crusher Joe): Read more…
A few months ago I was shocked that a high school student had never seen the classic film Citizen Kane! So I started a short lived campaign to build awareness of our national shame, and a few bloggers took up my lost cause. Now one of my favorite podcast personalities Michael Markman has taken up the gauntlet and given his interesting take on the topic. Read more…
