On the face of it Inglourious Basterds looks like a clear cut “World War II guys film” if there ever was one, but the inclusion of the character Shosanna Dreyfus made me realize that there was a bit more going on here. In fact in interviews Quentin Tarantino states that Shosanna was “always a main character”. Which made me reflect on the wealth and diversity of ladies that Tarantino has always featured in his films — in fact it’s something that makes his films into something much more interesting than what you see out of Hollywood. Of course part of his magic is that often Tarantino will write a role with a particular actress in mind. Here are my favorites characters that he’s conjured up over the years: Read more…
Snout Spout: His knock out nose knocks evil out! You can tell the design department of Mattel was bored to death of Masters of the Universe by 1986 when this commercial came out. I can just see some poor child at Christmas yelping “Mommy why did you get me an elephant? I wanted He-Man!” Don’t get me wrong as a toy it looks very clever but our pachyderm friend seems somewhat out of place with the other members of the Masters of the Universe. In fact the character wasn’t even shown in the series until after the toy came out (you can tell that merchandising was more important than story telling). Read more…
This video shows two things: The first is how a show like Jem can come out of nowhere and give a well established brand like a Barbie a run for the money — and the second thing is just how much cultural mindspace MTV owned back in the 80s when it was new. Inspired by MTVJem and the Holograms went on the air in 1985 and suddenly Barbie who had been around since 1959 seemed slightly old fashioned. Read more…
It was one of the low points of my life: After breaking my ass to build a business for about a dozen years I watched everything go down the drain in just a few short months during the dot.bomb crash of 2001 until 2003. My entire world fell apart on both a meta level (watching 9/11 and then seeing Silicon Alley 1.0 fade away) and on a personal level (seeing friends I worked with for years move on). But in the aftermath I vowed to rebuild, and along the way I learned a few valuable lessons. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 18, 2009 in Comic Books
I don’t have the slightest clue how Citizen Rex escaped my attention, but now I feel that makes it my job to draw attention to this wonderful sci fi themed comic book mini series. But first we need to go back a few decades in time to the 80s: Back then a bit of a revolution was going on in the comic book field, lead by RAW Magazine some very talented artists shook up the field and decided to show that it could be a real art firm. Out were the typical superhero comics that owned newsstands and in came graphic novels and interesting illustrational techniques. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 18, 2009 in Videogames
Everyone knows about the classic game Perfection, but what I love about this commercial is that it mentions the very rare follow up game Superfection. This spot was broadcast in 1986 but clearly dates from a few years earlier: Both Perfection and Superfection were created by Lakeside Games. Superfection which came out in 1975 is harder to find that Perfection which has become a time honored classic. Here’s a video of Superfection in action: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 17, 2009 in Comic Books
I’m so happy to see Marvel taking chances for once! With the first issue of Punisher Noir #1 which hits comic book shops on Wednesday, August 19th we’ll see an entire Punisher series that is set in the 1920’s. The minute I came across the cover for this book (illustrated by Tim Bradstreet and Denis Calero) I liked the little touches like the Flatiron building in the background and the vintage firearms show as decorative graphics. Looking at the inside of the book I like what artist Paul Azaceta and writer Frank Tieri have done with this book: Read more…
Both of these spots are from 1986 and solve the unique challenge that while toy ads sell to kids, toy store ads must sell to adults. The Toys R Us ad does a nice job of this as it’s appealing to the kid inside all of us, I especially the oversized robot which comes in about 5 seconds into the spot. The Lionel Playworld spot takes more of a Footlose approach to the problem, but for all the shoulder pads and singing you don’t get the feeling that they’re really having a good time of it: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 16, 2009 in Videogames
I loved this obsessive fan made video which is a montage of nothing but death scenes from old school video games set to the music of the Misfits! Part I above features the song Skulls while Part II below uses Night of the Living Dead as the soundtrack: Read more…
Both of these spots come from a local TV station in Florida from 1988 — and they both share the theme of needing to know computer skills (or blue collar “technology” skills like in the spot below) to survive in the marketplace. Most people think of the 80s as a prosperous time but in fact even during the high points there were many layoffs due to mergers and acquisitions. In fact when these commercials were shot it was right after the stock market crash of 1987, so people would have had their eyes on keeping their jobs. Read more…
Introduced in 1976 Atari Breakout was a breakthrough game — it’s interesting to note to that future Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak worked on the prototype (who was hired by Steve Jobs). This Japanese piggy bank celebrates this legendary arcade game — and what’s cool about it is that you can actually play a function version of the game on it. I also rather like the fact that all the decals on the piggy bank are in Japanese: Read more…
Introduced in 1984 by Galoob Sweet Secrets were purse shape toys which would transform into dolls — this 1986 spot shows them turning into a puppy, teddy bear and a girl with long blond hair. There was also a related line of jewelry that would transform into a panda, a koala and a “pretty friend”: Read more…
Hello Kitty is a master multitasker and that’s why this Hello Kitty USB Hub is so brilliant: It allows you to consolidate your clutter by allowing you to plug in two USB devices. Yes I know in terms of the geeky side two isn’t that many, but how many other hubs might you own that feature a cute kitty sitting on top of a mushroom? Read more…
This is Noto Arisa (能登有沙) who is nicknamed Nocchi, this video is a regular feature on the DogaDoga7 Anime NewType Channel. I’m somewhat addicted to these videos on YouTube because Nocchi is always hanging out at anime cons and sneaking around animation studios. In the video above she’s announcing her 2nd personal manga, talking about some DVD and mentioning that she will debut as a voice actor in an animated drama titled Deba no Hime Goto. Below is the video of her snooping around Gonzo, the studio responsible for the Strike Witches: Read more…
The Daruma doll (達磨) are a classic Japanese toy — you fill in one eye upon starting a quest, and then you color in the other eye once you finish. This cute digital variation of the doll actually stores 2 gigs of memory — which makes it the perfect companion for overachievers: Read more…
I recently came across these two Kenner toy commercials from 1986 for M.A.S.K. (which stands for Mobile Armored Strike Kommand and shouldn’t be confused with the 1995 animated series based on the the Jim Carey film The Mask) and was surprised to discover that this classic 80s kids series was in fact anime! The series was produced by DIC, but the actual animation was produced by three Japanese studios: KK C&D Asia, Studio Juno, Studio World and Ashi Production. Of course they weren’t alone back then, many anime studios did work for American series — the best example would be ThunderCats from that era. Read more…
You can relive your memories of the early days of anime with this Mobile Suit Gundam USB Memory device. It will hold up to 4 gigs, which might just hold a few digital backups of your old VHS tapes or photos of your giant robot collection: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 13, 2009 in Animation, Cinema
We like to think of sci fi films as something new, but the fact of the matter is that the genre is now over a century old. On this day in 1909 the French film Le Voyage sur Jupiter opened in the United States. Directed by Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón in 1907 the movie is quite similar to Le voyage dans la lune from 1902 by Georges Méliès. Although to his credit Chomón was very good at special effects and shows off a few new tricks here. Read more…
My good friends Carolyn Lengel and Mike Enright are running a very cool Bollywood film series up at the Ossining Public Library (in Ossining, New York of course!): This Saturday they’ll be showing the 1998 film Dil Se (दिल से which translates to From the Heart). Shown above is their wonderful video promotion for the film which gives you a very good taste of the plot. And below is a fan made trailer for the film: Read more…
No it’s not Meow Mix, but the Meow Mixer! This Hello Kitty Kitchen Hand Mixer comes with a red or blue dress, and they claim that it’s easy to clean the metal mixer part. Although if you are a hardcore kitty fan I couldn’t imagine you actually using said device clearly it would be on display or kept in an unopened box to ensure the collectibility factor.
Above is author Neil Gaiman at the opening of Worldcon 2009 in Montreal. What’s a Worldcon you ask? Well for those of you not in the know Worldcon is the world science fiction convention which has been held every year since 1939 except during World War II (because most of the fanboys were being drafted). As someone who was active in fandom going back a bit I can tell you that once upon a time Worldcon was THE place where Hollywood would show their latest. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 11, 2009 in Comic Books
One Model Nation looks like a captivating graphic novel about a fictional revolution set in 1977 in an alternate reality Germany. What I love about this book from little I’ve seen is that there is no dialog at all, thus giving you a page turning silent movie experience. The story is by Courtney Taylor who is best known for his musical career as Dandy Warhols, normally I’d hold this against an potential author but I like what I see here. And in terms of what you see the book is illustrated by Jim Rugg who has done some amazing work in the past — and he’s done a nice job here: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 10, 2009 in Videogames
Looking at this latest trailer of Samurai Warriors 3 (known as Sengoku Musou 3 in Japan) I’m very impressed with the level of detail that Koei and Omega Force have put into this Wii game. This series has been running since 2004 and combines historical settings with just a little bit of magic for fighting scenes. This latest version should be out at the end of November, 2009. Here are some very well done character designs I from their preview website: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 10, 2009 in Comic Books
I always get excited when I get to see a preview of a Rob Guillory cover illustration, unlike so many other artists his work always features a wonderful sense of humor (and he’s not afraid to get cartoony). But when I came across the cover of Chew #5 I was a bit let down once I started out of the box: I mean yeah there’s a cannibalism joke, but it’s not that funny and the picture is a bit stark. But then I looked just a tiny bit closer, and what I found made me realize that this was perhaps the best Guillory cover to date: Read more…
On the face of it Inglourious Basterds looks like a clear cut “World War II guys film” if there ever was one, but the inclusion of the character Shosanna Dreyfus made me realize that there was a bit more going on here. In fact in interviews Quentin Tarantino states that Shosanna was “always a main character”. Which made me reflect on the wealth and diversity of ladies that Tarantino has always featured in his films — in fact it’s something that makes his films into something much more interesting than what you see out of Hollywood. Of course part of his magic is that often Tarantino will write a role with a particular actress in mind. Here are my favorites characters that he’s conjured up over the years: Read more… 
