Johnny Mnemonic was THE nerd film event of 1995. Based on the short stories of William Gibson this mega budget flick was the talk of every geek. So why has this film been forgotten? Frankly it’s because Keanu Reeves was such a bad actor! Granted that this may be the partial fault of artist/director Robert Longo but in the scene above makes a William Shatner performance look subtle by comparison. So how were so many smart fanboys fooled? Well the marketing for the film was stellar — for example this trailer gives no hint of the uneven nature of the film: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 27, 2009 in Television
“The year: 2500 AD. The ‘Phoenix Five’. The crew: Captain Roke, Ensign Adam Hargreaves, Cadet Tina Kulbrick, and their computeroid Karl. Their mission: to patrol the outer galaxies for Earth Space Control, to maintain peace, and to capture Zodian the humanoid, who with the aid of his computers Alpha and Zeta endeavours to become dictator of outer space.”Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 26, 2009 in Pulp Fiction
Flesh by by Philip Jose Farmer, 1960 first printing, illustration by Gerald McConnell
Philip José Farmer was part of that first generation of authors who put science fiction on the map — above is a clipping of a 1954 newspaper that shows him, his wife and Isaac Asimov sporting a bow tie to give you a context of the man and his times. Farmer was unusual in that unlike so many other writers of the genre he managed to weave many sexual themes into his science fiction stories.
The book that would put him on the map was the novel Flesh which was published in 1960. When it first came out the book received a rather lukewarm review, but a revised expanded edition eight years later won him more praise — and today the book is acclaimed as a landmark novel of the genre. Later Farmer would go onto write the Riverworld series of books which would inspire a role-playing game, a television series and a PC computer game. Read more…
Editor’s Note: As a creative person I’ve been watching the urban toys scene in awe — and the first question that pops into my head is always “What’s the process of making these cool art objects into reality?” Long time artist David Foox has just introduced a line of toys called Organ Donors, so I asked him as a favor to write up an article giving his start-to-finish experience as a first time creative tackling the world of designer toys.
Step #1 Concept
The most important aspect of any custom vinyl toy is CONCEPT. “If your concept is solid, your toy is a success.” – Erick Scarecrow, friend. While this is the first step of the project, it is actually the most important step – and the one that is most often neglected. People are typically in a hurry to get to the other steps and fail to adequately delve into the concept that is being developed. In order to best develop a concept, I would advise people to first create an inhabitable environment, world, universe, or cause. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 24, 2009 in Comic Books
On February 2010 we’ll find out what happens when you mix up Spiderman, Bono and a Broadway musical together. The website for Spider-Man, Turn Off The Dark has gone live and come June you’ll be able to sign up for tickets for a show that promises a new take on the story of Peter Parker, whose life is turned upside down when he’s bitten by a genetically altered spider. Read more…
Introduced in 1964 the IBM System/360 was THE most popular computer of that era when such devices were the exclusive domain of big business and government. Each computer supported floating-point calculations and ran with up to 8 megs of memory! Sadly there are very few of these gems still in existence today — in fact the Smithsonian owns a 360 but sadly it isn’t even on display.
But the real story behind this computer is the project manager — who was Fred Brooks. As fate would have it in addition to the hardware Brooks also had to manage the development of the operating system for the 360 which was System/360. Luckily for all of us the project was a disaster going over budget and over time. However Brooks turned lemons into lemonade by writing the book The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering which was first published in 1975: Read more…
My guess is that this commercial dates from the very late 70s or early 80s — I tend to associate Vincent Price more with the horror than the mystery genre although there is a bit of an overlap. By the way it should be noted that the Franklin Library wasn’t a serious book publisher but an arm of the Franklin Mint which was more in the business of selling collectables than literature. From my own point of view these ornately bound books lack the charm that one would find in the cover illustration of low brow mystery paperback.
Update: Nick Kent has pointed out to me the missing Vincent Price mystery connection! Price was host of the PBS series Mystery in the 80s:Read more…
When I first came across this commercial my first thoughts were “this has got to be an upcoming CGI Star Blazers movie that I’ve been waiting for my entire life!” But then I noticed at the end of the advert that there seemed to be some sort of box — I figured then that it had to be some sort of amazing videogame:
Well after a minuter or two of googling the subject it turns out that this amazing animation is for a new Space Battleship Yamato Pachinko machine! By you’ve got to check out the website — it’s all in Japanese but the interface with make any old school Star Blazers fan weep with joy: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 21, 2009 in Science
The planned February launch of the Discovery has been delayed for the forth time due to potential faulty fuel valves. But that’s not the real story here: The fact of the matter is that the Discovery first flight was in August of 1984. Think about that for a minute — that’s just a few months shy of 25 years ago! In that time we’ve had five Presidents in office spanning three generations — and when Discovery first launched geeks were first discovering dial up bulletin boards. Read more…
I came across this commercial for the Xerox Publishing System from 1986 and it got me to thinking: It’s commonly accepted wisdom that Xerox did too little too late with the innovations that were generated at their PARC research facility (user interface, ethernet and laser printing) which is why Apple was able to have their breakthrough. Looking back on it that’s true, but I think the missing lesson is price point as much as speed to market. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 19, 2009 in Tech, Videogames
The latest Apple commercial featuring 20 hot games on the iPod Touch brought a smile to my eye as it represents Apple getting back their pre-Macintosh roots of the Apple ][. The hidden secret to the success of any operating system is games. Now these don’t have to be games aimed at hardcore gamers, in fact what will sell a platform are casual games that you can drop in and out of easily. Read more…
For us old time anime fanboys PBM Express USA had a great collection of retro goodies at the Toy Fair! Shown above are action figures for Mazinger Z and Grendizer, and below is a highly detailed Captain Harlock Statue:
The geek friendly company Fascinations (based out of Seattle, Washington) had an interesting display of a technology that would allow you to float and rotate a small object. Their thinking is that this might appeal to fanboy toy collectors looking for a unique way to show off prized items in a unusual way. Shown above is their Stellanova line of floating globes using the technology, and below is a video I shot on the showroom floor:
Sometimes it takes just the right twist to make something interesting, in this case the Spykee Spy is a WiFi robot which is controlled remotely by you but the cool thing is that the robot can take pictures and video. So while at work your robot can wander about your home and report back to you. Each robot features a bitmaped face which lends some humor to the design. But best of all certain models of the robots can act as a cradle for your iPod or iPhone (which is a nice touch):
Hidden in the basement of the Javits Center the Toy2R was a wonderful oasis of urban toys in an ocean of rainbow colored plush at the Toy Fair. The first goodies that caught my eye were the Reservoir Dogs Qee Series shown above and below.
Sadly I’ve grown jaded now that Domo has gone mainstream, but I wouldn’t be ashamed to have these colorful variations hanging out near my computer:
I hate insects with a passion but my favorite new toy line of the entire show was Hexbug — this is a collection of actual working robots each of which is equipped with a different type of sensor (light, sound, motion, etc.) which effects how it interacts with you. I’ve seen these sorts of creatures before made by robotic fanboys, but this product will bring these sorts of critters more into the mainstream as they very low priced (I was told they were going for about $10 on average – you can buy the entire line of 10 for $100 too). In fact the CEO of the company told me that kids were using these toys as fundraisers for science fairs in order to build their own robotic creations. Here are the Hexbugs in action at the fair:
Wandering about the plushies section at the Toy Fair you wouldn’t expect anime, but much to my pleasant surprise Toy Network LLC has done a deal to bring out a full line adorable Shin-chan characters! And the whole crew is here: Boo, Georgie, Penny, Hima, Shin Chan, Maso, Whitey, Principal Ench, Action Bastard and of course Happiness Bunny. By the way you can buy them in bulk for your local anime convention!
The Bandai booth blew me away! Most of their display was behind closed doors, but guarding those doors were two huge oversized statues of a robot from Power Rangers and Ben 10: Read more…
From a fanboy point of view one of the coolest exhibitors at Toy Fair 2009 was the Attakus Collection booth which was packed with highly detailed collectables that take your breath away. The Star Wars Probe Droid above first caught my eye due to the huge scale (and loving detail), but they also had a an amazing collection of smaller scale figures based on everything from Marvel Comics to AstroBoy: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 16, 2009 in Television
I hadn’t realized just how geek focused the early advertising for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups was until I came across these two spots: The first advert above is from 1980 and has a bit of a Star Wars feeling to it, while 1982 commercial below is inspired by the first generation of home videogames.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 16, 2009 in Science
It was only less than a few weeks ago that we reported that Astrophysicist Duncan Forgan had boldly calculated that there are about 40,000 planets that would support intelligent life — well like a free nerd upgrade Dr. Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science now claims that our galaxy could have billions of earth-like planets! Boss’s thinking is that each Sun-like star has on average one “Earth-like” planet, although sadly he wouldn’t go on the record like Forgan and take his math to the next level to make predictions about intelligent life. In fact on the negative side (or positive?) Boss feels that many of these planets are in primitive states and are populated by less advanced life forms like bacteria. But up on the up side Dr. Boss thinks that NASA’s Kepler mission might begin to spot earth-like planets in just a few years.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 14, 2009 in Animation
The Galaxy Railways is a 2003 anime series produced by Leiji Matsumoto which reminds me a great deal of Galaxy Express 999. What’s neat is that Funimation is starting to put full episodes of this series up on YouTube. What makes Matsumoto interesting to me is that he was the king of steampunk long before the term was invented — his work in the 70s was filled with space pirates and Victorian trains in a Star Wars universe. This latest series feels slightly xeroxed from his older work, but just the same it is neat that Funimation is putting it out there. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 13, 2009 in Animation, Fandom
If you’re an otaku near New York City you’ll want to reserve Sunday March 1st on your calendars: Japanese cosplay singer Reni will be performing her “Japanese Maid Show” which features anime and J-Pop songs done in an authentic Akihabara style of singing and dancing:
Top Tunes, 303-305 East 53rd Street at 2nd Avenue
March 1st, Sunday 5-6pm (Doors open at 4:30pm)
No cover charge/one drink minimumRead more…
Johnny Mnemonic was THE nerd film event of 1995. Based on the short stories of William Gibson this mega budget flick was the talk of every geek. So why has this film been forgotten? Frankly it’s because Keanu Reeves was such a bad actor! Granted that this may be the partial fault of artist/director Robert Longo but in the scene above makes a William Shatner performance look subtle by comparison. So how were so many smart fanboys fooled? Well the marketing for the film was stellar — for example this trailer gives no hint of the uneven nature of the film: Read more… 
