Tech Rant du Jour: Once upon of time LaCie made reliable external harddrives that looked great on your desktop. Sadly for yours truly that day came to an end today when not one, but two of my LaCie Porsche model drives went to heaven. The odd thing is that both were different models from different years. With some luck and skill and I was able to salvage one, but the other may be history. So that other may learn from my mistakes here’s what I learned today: Read more…
I think one of the most creative uses I’ve seen of Halo is This Spartan Life which is a clever machinima driven talk show. For geeks these episodes are always pure gold as you have the ironic contrast between Charlie Rose intellectual chatting with a backdrop of a sci fi version of Apocalypse Now. The show has had some amazing guests to date but they need funding help to get it to the next level so they’re making use of kickstarter.com to raise funds from the fans. Most of us will never get to be big wig Hollywood producers, but this is a small way you can do that — but rest well knowing that you helped something of quality.
This is the second trailer for The Road which is due on November 25th. Normally I’m slightly pessimistic about post-apocalyptic films recently, however any film that’s based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy has a great deal of potential. In fact my understanding was that the film was moved to its current release date because it might be an Oscar contender which is also a good sign. Read more…
Sadly the reviews that Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen received were slightly less than stellar, however if you’re a fanboy you may still want to purchase the film because it comes on this nifty re-useable 4GB USB Stick. The packaging is pretty cool too, it’s so sad that they didn’t put the same amount of care into the movie: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 7, 2009 in Comic Books
365 Samurai and a Few Bowls of Rice looks like a wonderful combination of the storytelling skills of Akira Kurosawa mixed with a Jamie Hewlett look with just a dash of RAW magazine from the 80s. The artist behind this graphic novel is J. P. Kalonji a self taught illustrator who lives in Switzerland. Here’s an amazing 36 page sample from this beautiful book which is nearly 400 pages and will be published by Dark Horse Comics on December 2nd: Read more…
This is no ordinary cute Cthulhu! This release of My Little Cthulhu actually glows in the dark. This limited edition 8-inch vinyl figure designed by John Kovalic won’t be out until March of 2010, but you can pre-order now. Can’t wait for your cutie? The original My Little Cthulhu Dark Edition Vinyl Statue is available now: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 6, 2009 in Star Trek
This video breaks my heart because it gives me a taste at what might have been: This was the year that Star Trek was rebooted — however the one thing missing was that one little cameo with Shatner. Nimoy won’t do another film so we’ll never see the two of them together on the screen. So it’s painful for me to see one of my childhood heroes unveil his wax replica at Madame Taussaud’s Hollywood; it’s the role that has defined his entire life and he deserves to be closer to Star Trek than hanging out with a lifeless full sized action figure. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 6, 2009 in Animation
The good news? Blu-ray for Samurai Champloo will be out on December 15, 2009. The bad news? What the hell ever happened to Shinichirō Watanabe! I realize that having been behind two great anime shows is pretty good for one lifetime, but damn it I’d like to see the guy do one more big thing. I’m not saying that he’s a slacker in fact Watanabe is the associate producer on the 2011 Cowboy Bebop film. But instead of seeing him revisit the past I’d love to see something new.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 6, 2009 in Animation
I just finished reading a very scathing review of what Funimation is or rather what it isn’t doing for UK fans. The blog in question is Tiamat’s Manga Reviews and the first thing I can tell is the blogger in question loves anime — however as someone who also understands the pro side of the world I thought I’d address a few things that otaku may not always understand. So here’s my point-by-point insights on Tiamat’s critique: Read more…
Shown above is the ever so cute Street Fighter IV Fight Pad Action Voice Key Chain. This keychain looks like an old school arcade game controller, but when you press the punch button you get the Japanese voice of the character you are punching (and the same with the kick button). There are four versions for this device which feature the actual voice of the characters Chun-Li, Dhalsim, Ken and Ryu.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 5, 2009 in Comic Books
This short video clip shows underground comics legend R. Crumb talking about his latest book which is an illustrated version of the Book of Genesis (the full interview is here). The lady interviewing Crumb is Francoise Mouly, the art editor for the New Yorker magazine. Mouly while not being the slickest interviewer is a comics legend herself since back in the day she co-founded RAW with Art Spiegelman.
Because diamonds are a kitty’s best friend! Well these are sort of faux diamonds on this ever so cute Crystallized Swarovski Hello Kitty MP3 Player. For those not in the know Swarovski Elements Crystallized are high fashion crystals that have been used by well known fashion designers like Giorgio Armani. Although if you’re a geek you’ll also appreciate that this MP3 player holds up to 2 gigs of storage and offers a 10 hour battery life and costs a bit under $200.
Shown above is the beautiful cover for Star Wars: Invasion #5 by illustrator Jo Chen which comes out today. What I really love about the folks who license Star Wars is that they allow their artists a high degree of creative freedom to work within the brand and they always seem to pull of a high level of quality. So if you didn’t know that the cover was a Star Wars anything you’d still be impressed with it; to me that says so much about how much they care about the product. Below are a few of the interior pages by Colin Wilson which also look great — there’s no bait-and-switch which you see all the time with other titles: Read more…
This above video from the Web 2.0 Summit was given the sensational title TV and Movies Still Trump Online Video but I think that oversimplifies a bit much what Mark Cuban is saying. First the key word to focus in on is the word “still” which is the truth if you’re in online video. Because it’s still a medium that’s in the shadow of traditional media. This reflects the world that I work in where even after all of these years online video is the tail and cable TV is still the dog. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 3, 2009 in Comic Books
Sky Pirates of Neo Terra #2 will be out on Wednesday and the previews for this issue look grand! All the art in this series by Image Comics is by Camilla D’Errico and she gives her all to each page. Her style owes a great deal to anime, but if you look a bit further you’ll see other influences at work. I also love the use of lighting in each panel, and on top of that D’Errico palette does a nice job of contrasting subtle pastel colors with just a splash of more vivid colors here and there: Read more…
The great thing about zombies being so in style is that you can write about then after Halloween without feeling guilty! So it’s with pleasure that I can share this Night Of The Living Kev Inaction Figure which captures director Kevin Smith who is sporting the Monroeville Zombies t-shirt as worn by Seth Rogan in Kevin’s film Zack & Miri Make a Porno: Read more…
No I didn’t swipe that headline from The Onion: The subtle genius of this video is that it’s the perfect “man bites dog story” and speaks volumes about social media — if you’re willing to look under the surface. I’m a big believer that humor actually can sometimes tell us more about what’s going on than a straight news story: And this is why I always make it a point to never ignore what Loren Feldman has to say about the tech scene. Read more…
PansonWorks from Japan has created a line of One Piece air-deformed (and super cuter) figurines. PansonWorks is best known for a hip collection of character designs known as Robin and his 100 Friends. The One Piece figurines go on pre-sale on December 14th. Here’s the rest of the collection: Read more…
This above video from the Web 2.0 Summit was given the sensational title 
No I didn’t swipe that headline from The Onion: The subtle genius of this video is that it’s the perfect “man bites dog story” and speaks volumes about social media — if you’re willing to look under the surface. I’m a big believer that humor actually can sometimes tell us more about what’s going on than a straight news story: And this is why I always make it a point to never ignore what 