Here’s some hilarious clips featuring the 1978 Fantastic Four animated series with a cameo by none other than the master of magnetism himself. The show only lasted 12 episodes, no doubt due to the lack of the Human Torch — after all, he’s the only member anyone really liked. While there had been a long-running rumor that network executives were worried about kids immolating themselves, the fact of the matter was that Johnny Blaze had been licensed to NBC at the time for a potential pilot that never got picked up. Of course, with amazing scripts like The Menace Of Magneto here, I’m sureno amount of “flame on” could have saved it, and can someone please tell me why every 70’s cartoon villain felt the compulsive need to narrate everything?
HBO aired the last episode of its adaptation of Game of Thrones, the first book in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, last night, and by and large the response is: OMGWTFCoK! CoK, of course, referring to A Clash of Kings— the second book in the series, which HBO will also adapt. And which everyone who watched all of Game of Thrones is now salivating for (even if they already read the novels).
But before we get too excited for the second season, which hasn’t even been slated for broadcast yet, let’s talk about what HBO did right (and wrong) with the series so far. (Spoilers: they did almost everything right.) Read more…
This video paints a very pessimistic picture of how the flood of information we are creating today could be lost over time. As someone who has been playing with computers since the Reagan era seeing the images of floppy disks reminded me that indeed I still own a few that have data for computers like the C-64 and Apple II that have long since vanished — never mind zip disks from just a few years ago. We’re only been into this data revolution for a few short years, but I’ve already had several bad experiences which make me wonder about the long term security of the medium we’re crafting. Read more…
To me the coolest thing about this William Shatner Twilight Zone action figure is that it was actually approved by William Shatner himself! I still find myself upset that Shat didn’t get any love in the last Star Trek film, so it’s nice to see him getting some attention for his Twilight Zone work — even if its in the small scale form of an 8″ tall action figure. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 19, 2011 in Animation, Fandom
There’s only about a week left, but if you love artwork that’s evocative of anime there’s a wonderful show at the Graphite gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn featuring the artist Lisa Alisa. The images here don’t quite do her work that much justice as they’re large scale paintings which combine some wonderful draftsmanship and some very nice detail. The use of color is also quite vivid and powerful as well. Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Jun 19, 2011 in Dr. Who
Artist Larry Wentzel has a whole bunch of Peanuts-themed Doctor Who art on his Flickr page, but I think this one is probably my favorite. Wentzel says “I imagine after the 11th Doctor was put in the Pandorica, the villains broke out into a little celebratory dance.” I bet they did, too, or at least I hope they did after seeing this picture. Seriously, these guys are just getting down. I didn’t know Daleks could bend that way, much less play piano. Maybe that one’s a special model. Vince Guardalek?
Michael Sacco is a freelance editor and writer, currently working as senior editor at WoW Insider.
Posted by Michael Sacco on Jun 18, 2011 in Television
Darren Aronofsky may be off the Wolverine movie to which he was previously attached, but at least he’s found good company for his next project, according to Variety. He’s set to direct the pilot for Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Michael Chabon’s (above) new HBO drama series, Hobgoblin, about “a group of con men and magicians who use their skills of deception to help defeat Hitler and the Germans during WWII.” I’m assuming here that by “magicians” they mean the real-world sleight-of-hand artists, as opposed to the fantasy archetype we all know and love. If you want that, you can always go read Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis, or any number of alternate-history novels, I suppose. But Aronofsky is a great director for a project like this, and Chabon’s body of work, like his love letter to classic comic books “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay,” speaks for itself. Shame about that Wolverine movie, though. Read more…
If you love Japanese cinema and happen to live in NYC, DC or Tulsa the Akira Kurosawa film High and Low (天国と地獄) will be playing over the next few days. In this 1963 classic Kurosawa teams up with actor Toshirō Mifune for a nice tense kidnapping drama: Read more…
We found out about this a little late, but if you’re looking forward to Peter Jackson’s upcoming film The Hobbit, you might want a chance to catch the extended editions of Peter Jackson’s original Lord of the Rings trilogy on the big screen. Fathom Events has decided to host a special three night screening of the films at theaters around the nation. While we missed our chance to catch The Fellowship of the Ring on the 14th, you can still catch The Two Towers and The Return of the King on June 21st and 28 respectively at participating locations. Personally, I don’t recall ever catching the extended editions in the theater, but I can’t imagine spending 5 hours — at least, I seem to recall The Return of the King’s extended cut being about that long — in a theater packed with fellow hobbit enthusiasts. In fact, I don’t think I’d be able to do that for any film, let alone that one. Still, it’s probably something I won’t get another chance to see in theaters anytime soon. For the full list of participating locations, or for more information, head over to Fathom’s event site.
