Normally I’d slag this film out of the gate — however Denzel Washington gives me some hope that The Book of Eli might be interesting (and Gary Oldman too!). Although the plot sounds kind of like we’ve heard it before: “A lone hero must fight his way across the wasteland of post-apocalyptic America to protect a sacred book that holds the key to saving the future of humanity.” Maybe it would be nice if folks would read a book every now and then in pre-apocalyptic America?Read more…
It’s gets very dry on the planet Tatooine — and that’s why this special R2-D2 unit has been converted into a handy humidifier! Frankly for a USB trinket this goodie is pretty impressive — you can store up to 8 ounces of water in the body of this droid. And best yet R2-D2 doesn’t require any batteries, you can run the device just on the power of your USB port (admit you didn’t want to waste that port on something dumb like a backup hard drive anyway!). Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 24, 2009 in Comic Books
Weekly Shōnen Sunday (週刊少年サンデ) has been published every week since 1959 (although one should note that it actually comes out on Wednesday during the week, not Sunday). Looking back on their 50 years one of the high points of their history was the year 1983 when their circulation grew by leaps and bounds due to the fresh quality of the manga for that era: So to celebrate this they’ve released the book Shonen Sunday 1983 which gives you taste of the manga from that era. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 23, 2009 in Animation
On this day in 1966 one of the first full length feature anime films made it to the United States: That was none other than Garibā no Uchū Ryokō (ガリバーの宇宙旅行) which was translated to Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon. The film was produced by Toei in 1965 and directed by the team of Masao Kuroda and Sanae Yamamoto, but what might make it interesting to current anime fans is that Hayao Miyazaki also worked on the film providing some uncredited writing and quite a bit of inbetween animation work. In the scene above we see young Ricky meeting Gulliver, and below is a scene featuring the Princess of the Star of Hope (who was voiced by Our Gang’sDarla Hood): Read more…
When I first spotted this limited edition Junko Mizuno Designer My Little Pony my first thoughts were “This looks like My Little Pony on LSD!” By adding the baroque flourishes to a sugar coated 80s cartoon icons the result reminds me a great deal of psychedelic inspired artwork from the late 60s — which in my book is a good thing (or an entertaining thing at the very least). By the way if you’re into the art toy treatment there’s also the My Little Pony Collector Art Pony Wave 1 Set although it looks a little bit more hipster like in its inspiration: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 22, 2009 in Science
This amazing video shows the view of a camera attached to the SRB, which translated into English is the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster. If you want to see something amazing look at the 2:20 minute mark on the video and you can see the booster separate from the shuttle! I made an animated gif to show this off: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 22, 2009 in Animation
When Usavich came out it got quite a bit of novelty interest because it didn’t quite looks like anything else that anyone hasd seen before — after all how many Anime CGI series do you see that features the adventures of two Soviet bunnies? Well I’m happy to report that MTV in Japan has kept producing the show which is now in its third season. Read more…
When I first laid my eyes on this Batman Ame Comi Statue I have to say that I was impressed! The folks at DC Comics actually did a good job of giving the dark knight that anime touch — even down to the Captain Harlock belt treatment. But then I started thinking: Why no improve this and bring to the next level? So on the photo above I added my own captions to show what accessories a mangaesque Batman might be adorned with. And not to be left out I gave the same treatment to the Robin Ame Comi Robin Vinyl Statue: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 21, 2009 in Comic Books
I really love the work that Skottie Young is doing for Marvel these days: In this case his cover illustration for Marvel Adventures Spider-man #53 does a wonderful job of reinventing Peter Parker. Usually Peter is seen as the archetype of the geek who was playing with his science lab routine too much — here he’s reinvented as a punky juvenile delinquent, yet Young has kept true to the larger theme of superheroes with a secret identity. Read more…
