When I was growing up, I absolutely loved my legos — so much so that I actually fancied myself a structural engineer of sorts. Of course, I never really built anything without a set of instructions but at least I did a good job of it. Needless to say, I was in complete awe of this fantastic creation by lego enthusiast Brickshelf. Using a simple image of a T-800 exoskeleton, he was able to recreate a bust of James Cameron’s metallic killing machine with stunning detail. Maybe it’s not as nostalgic for me as say… a Valkyrie, but its still way too awesome for me to ignore. Check out Brickshelf’s gallery for more photos. Read more…
Twitch recently posted this photo of a supposed Godzilla prototype from the upcoming American remake, and it’s been floating around the net for the last week. Unfortunately, popular horror site Bloody Disgusting managed to confirm that the model in question is not from the upcoming Legendary Pictures remake after all — a shame, considering how fantastic the model actually is. I’m not really sure what to expect from the upcoming remake, as the production staff behind the film are also responsible for the travesty that was Terminator: Salvation, but I do hope that they’ll give the franchise the treatment it deserves. After all, the last thing we need is another Emmerich-esque bomb. Read more…
Like good little geeks, we’ve all been drooling over the Iron Man 2 trailers as they’ve been released. And we’ve seen USA’s “sneak peek” at least six thousand times between NCIS reruns (is it still a sneak peek if the movie’s out now?). And of course, we have now seen the ultimate trailer (for the Avengers movie), Iron Man 2.
Above: The record sleeve for the Queen single Radio Ga Ga the music video of which incorporated a great deal of footage from Metropolis.
The last time fandom was this excited about Metropolis was the 80s: It was no secret that Ridley Scott borrowed some of his inspiration from the film when making Blade Runner – and the highpoint was the Giorgio Moroder 1984 release of the film. I have a great deal of love for the Moroder release as it made the film cool to a new generation with it MTV soundtrack (that and Moroder is a musical genius). So I had mixed feelings about seeing the current release of Metropolis as I wondered if I could this film with a fresh eye yet again, and I’m glad to say that I did. Read more…
A teaser has been released for the upcoming fan film Star Wars: Uncut. For those of you who haven’t heard about the project, the film consists of 15 second clips by fans in an attempt recreate Episode IV: A New Hope in its entirety. The trailer highlights the variety of methods used to create each scene with everything from Legos and toys, to pets and food. I about died when I saw the hamburger Millenium Falcon take off, making its escape from a cardboard Death Star. Read more…
Rather than exploring strange new worlds or civilizations, Seagate and Paramount have recently teamed up to offer a strange new deal for film and portable hard drive enthusiasts. In what they claim is an industry first — I’ve yet to find evidence to the contrary — Seagate will be selling a selection of their 500 GB Free Agent Go portable hard drives pre-loaded with a selection of 20 Paramount films, including a free copy of J.J. Abram’s Star Trek. Read more…
I must admit that I’m not exactly a historical fiction buff, but when I heard about Seth Grahame-Smith’s recently released novel, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, I must admit that the concept piqued my interest. Of course, it wasn’t until I stumbled across this amazing trailer for the novel that I found myself compelled to buy a copy. I’m still in the process of reading it, so I can’t comment too much on the content, aside from my assurance that it isn’t Twilight. Read more…
In 1995 the Gamera franchise was robooted with the film Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. Our titanic turtle friend made his first appearance in November of 1965 in the film Daikaijū Gamera in which he awakes due to an atomic bomb explosion during a cold war tango between the Americans and Soviets. So of course our turtle friend the decided to go on a rampage of Tokyo — which has endeared him to generations of Japanese ever since! Shown above is the Tokusatsu Revoltech 006 Gamera and below is the Tokusatsu Revoltech 007 Gyaos who like to fight each other and wreck havoc in densely populated urban locals. Read more…
This latest Iron Man 2 trailer looks like a great deal of fun, I really like the campy feel to the entire clip. The film is going to be out in early May and my gut tells me that it’s going to do very well in terms of box office.
Shown above is the trailer for The Expendables. When you start to see too many stars associated with a film my immediate fear is the Poseidon Adventure effect which has all of the talent being washed away from the screen. Although being a fanboy at heart I’m already predisposed to rooting for any film that has Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke and Forest Whitaker playing for the same team. Although my better sense is the trailer doesn’t seem promising, but I’ll give Stallone a chance… Read more…
What do you get when you put Steve Jobs together with a bunch of sci fi shows and movies? I’m not 100% sure but they’re all in the above video from Kelvington’s Parody Channel. By the way it’s amazing to think how much science fiction impacts the world of tech…
I haven’t been to NYC’s Museum of Modern Art since their admission price hit a serious $20. (Sure you can get info free Friday evenings courtesy of Target – if you don’t mind standing on line for two hours.) I take that back; I’ve been there once or twice since, but gratis, wearing my fedora with the ‘PRESS’ pass tucked in the brim. Read more…
For his day gig Tommy Williamson professional artist working in the motion picture industry, but for fun he likes to play with Legos: His latest creation is this wonderful Alice in Wonderland tribute. What’s brilliant about his sculpture is how few bricks that he used to capture the likeness of the Mad Hatter and Alice: Read more…
You know it’s funny I’ve never have been too crazy about James Cameron as a director, however listening to this very relaxed interview with him was quite energizing and inspiring. It’s wonderful to hear not just about his creative process — but also his take on Hollywood then copying everything (his example is the 3D craze which he inspired). And as much as I wasn’t crazy about Avatar I almost felt sorry for Cameron watching the Oscars because you could sense not just a level of insecurity and slight hostility to his technical skills, but also even the idea that a science fiction film might get best picture. So even with the success of his box office, it gave me a real sympathy seeing him within the Hollywood hierarchy.
This is the full trailer for Tron Legacy and I like what I see: Disney has some amazing luck — not only does it look like they’ll please the fanboys with this film, but now they have an Oscar winner in Jeff Bridges starring in the picture. I like the fact that the art direction of film stays very true to the original, which makes the Syd Mead fan inside of me happy. Here are some stills from the trailer to ogle at: Read more…
As a fanboy I still have mixed feelings about what Zack Snyder did with Watchmen last year, although maybe in retrospect my expectations were too high. So with him tackling Legend of the Guardians which is a children’s book I think I might be willing to withhold judgement until I’ve seen a bit more than this teaser trailer. My doubts spring from the fact that I’ve seen too Pixar wannabe films these past few years and I’m not sure if I want to watch owls for an entire sitting — but I’ll give Zack a chance. The film will be due out at the end of September this year. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 2, 2010 in Cinema, Science
I was very saddened to hear that Dr. Robert McCall passed away as he was very much a hero of mine. I’ll never forget the first time I visited the Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. — along with being able to touch a piece of the moon and look at shopping mall full of aircraft and spaceships the first thing that hits you it the amazing larger than life mural by Robert McCall (an amazing gallery of his drawings that they house are here). Most of us have science fiction fanboys have grown up with McCall’s artwork without even knowing the artist. I think the first time McCall spoke to me was with his amazing work on the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was looking at this artwork as a child long after the film came out, but his paintings created a magical environment that you’d want to wander around and step inside: Read more…
Sadly I wasn’t permitted to take any photos, but the one thing I noticed that the Toy Fair was that there was Green Hornet goodies all over the place! The film is set for theaters on December 22nd this year but I can tell you know that there will be a merchandise extravaganza associated with the release. And while I can’t name any names, the toys that I did see looked quite amazing. Read more…
When I came across the above photo I was blown away: I’ve seen Metropolis and looked at so many stills — yet I never came across a image that represented so well the amazing amount of work that went into this film. So I set on a quest to locate other behind-the-scenes glimpses of the work that Fritz Lang did before he fled Germany in 1933: Read more…
The irony of this Back to the Future Lights and Sound Mark I Delorean is that while it doesn’t have the ability to travel into the future just looking at the photo takes me back to 1985. And the strange thing about the 80s was that there was a very self aware consciousness that the decade had its own unique style and look — which I think that may be the real reason why they picked the DeLorean DMC-12 (1981–1982) as their time machine of choice. Of course to quote Dr. Emmett Brown in the film his reason was “The way I see it, if you’re gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style? ” Read more…
Recently while a good friend was telling me about the advantages of seeing Avatar in 3D IMAX over just plain 3D I couldn’t help but mention how much I hated “the plot” of the film. My friend then challenged me that while the twists-and-turns of the Na’vi may have been overly predictable that in fact the first Star Wars film was just as telegraphed. Read more…
For about the past week all across Manhattan I’ve been spotting giant billboards for the upcoming Mel Gibson film The Edge of Darkness. And looking at this poster every day I couldn’t help but think “what the hell were they thinking?” Mel’s last public performance was being arrested after driving drunk and then uttering some not so nice words. So you’d think that Mel would want to put this sad episode behind him — yet his poster taunts us with the tagline “Some Secrets Take Us to the Edge”. Read more…
I have to say that one of my bigger disappointments of seeing Avatar wasn’t just the lack of plot in Avatar itself, but the uninspiring trailer for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland which made me heartbroken. Now there’s a chance that the trailer was rushed, and I hope that’s the case because I’m a Burton fanboy and would trust him to get the animation right. Although looking at the above featurette I’m still on the fence.
When I came across the above photo I was blown away: I’ve seen Metropolis and looked at so many stills — yet I never came across a image that represented so well the amazing amount of work that went into this film. So I set on a quest to locate other behind-the-scenes glimpses of the work that Fritz Lang did before he fled Germany in 1933: 
