Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 12, 2009 in Animation
Here’s the latest trailer for Despicable Me and I’ve got to say that I’m even less impressed with the film now than when the previous trailer came out. This is the same crew that was behind Ice Age so they’re not as bad as Dreamworks, yet they’ll never be as good as Pixar. As usual we’ve got famous movie stars who are lame at voice acting and visual gags that are overplayed, and the end result doesn’t make me want to stand in line to buy a ticket.
Yes I know James Cameron will make a billion dollars with Avatar. But you know what Cameron will never know how to do? Create a damn high quality giant robot that kids will want to buy thirty years from now! Shown above is the reason why: The Avatar AMP Suit (shown above) looks like a left over prop from the film Aliens: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 11, 2009 in Comic Books
Introduction: The graphic novel One Model Nation will come out at the end of November and as fans of both comic books and music we throughly enjoyed this book which takes place in an alternate universe version of Berlin in 1977. We were lucky to get an interview with Donovan Leitch, the official historian of this tale who collaborated with writer Courtney Allbritton Taylor and artist Jim Rugg to bring this illustrated rock epic to life. Read more…
It’s amazing to think that Buck Rogers got started as a fictional character in an issue of Amazing Stories from over 90 years ago (August 1928 to be exact) — however Buck made his first huge mark as a comic strip series illustrated by John Flint Dille. Those old strips have a wonderfully quirky look to them, and the folks at Dark Horse have picked on this by introducing a line of swag which was designed by the folks at Retro-A-Go-Go. The collection goes on sale on February 24th, 2010 and includes a wide range of goodies including picture frames: Read more…
Right now every techie in the universe has watched the above clip and drawn the conclusion that Rupert Murdoch “just doesn’t get it”. My thinking is that not only does Murdoch understand very well the business of the net, but he also has the money to back up his vision. The reason is that unlike most other newspapers the Wall Street Journal is one of those rare properties which is a must read publication in its field. In other words like Bloomberg he has one of the few sources of content which is so high in quality that people will be willing to pay for it. Read more…
He’s not my favorite director but I think James Cameron’s true talent is the ability to combine a good story with bleeding edge special effects. When I watched the previous trailer for Avatar it looked like a bad videogame, but perhaps I was a bit too hasty to call my predictions for this film. Looking at this latest trailer I’m seeing more of the story which looks rock solid — so my bet is that Avatar is going to be the hit of the season. And as much as I’m not a fan of Cameron I also have to give him credit for the ability to pull off making a film of this scale without it being based on a comic book or a TV show from thirty years ago. Alhough the alien world animation still looks like a bad videogame to me…
The unintentionally ironic thing about the Cheech & Chong Action Figure Set is that it strikes me as being the most effective anti-drug statement I’ve ever seen: And of course that irony goes even deeper as pretty much all anti-drug advertising always seems to make drug use somehow cooler. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 9, 2009 in Comic Books
As a New Yorker I’d always assumed that 9/11 was the definitive defining moment of America in the 21st Century — but now I’m wondering if the flooding of New Orleans was maybe just as important if not more so. My thinking is that while for the most part NYC has picked up as a city and has gone that New Orleans is never coming back. Yes it may still be there in a small way, but it will never be a major city again. In terms of the psyche of America this is huge as that city was unique and pre-dated the United States itself. So it’s interesting to see this topic spread out from documentaries into the world of fiction. So Nola #1 caught my eye, and it’s worth taking a closer look at. Read more…
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.
