Clanky: The Chocolate Flavored Spaceman

Clanky is very clever! Clanky was a brand of chocolate flavored syrup from the early 60s which featured a plastic bottle in the shape of a spaceman. I love how this commercial combines a 3D set with with 2D animation, the commercials has an amazing amount of detail with over a dozen characters on the screen. Also the lollipops on the planetscape are a nice added touch!

Chocolate Biscuit Burgers

I’m a vegetarian, but i very much approve of these burgers! Shown above is the packaging for the Bourbon Every Burger which are chocolate biscuit burgers. What impressed me with these chocolate biscuit faux burgers are that they look so realistic, in fact they throw in a few random cheese burgers for fun:

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Machine Girl Trailer

Kataude mashin gâru (the Machine Girl) is an action comedy from Japan directed by Noboru Iguchi due out in 2008. It looks much more fun than the upcoming Iron Man film, no?

Found via FilmDrunk.

Indiana Jones 4: Secrets Revealed

I like the fact that they’ve let him age in real time and are setting the film in the cold war era:

First look: Whip cracks over new ‘Indiana Jones’ movie

“Indiana Jones co-producer Frank Marshall is authorized to confirm some rumors and detail some of the story, about a quest for South American relics with supernatural powers.

When last we saw Indy, he was riding off into the sunset in 1989’s The Last Crusade, set in 1938 near the start of World War II. The new movie, due this spring, is set at the height of the Cold War in 1957, so the character has aged in real time — 19 years.

The Nazis are no longer Indy’s chief foe — he’s racing for the Crystal Skull against operatives from the Soviet Union, including Oscar winner Cate Blanchett as the seductive Agent Spalko. “Indy always has a love-hate relationship with every woman he ever comes in contact with,” Marshall says.”

The Making of the Shining

What’s amazing about this documentary is that it was created by then 17 year old Vivian Kubrick. This is the version with her commentary:

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Fanboy Heaven: Buying a Batmobile

Sadly the new owner had to sign an agreement which states they can’t drive the Batmobile in public:

The Batmobile from “Batman Forever” sells for $297,000

“The Batmobile, which was featured in the 1995 “Batman Forever” movie, starring Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey and Nicole Kidman, was recently sold by Warner Bros at RM Auctions. Though estimated at around $800,000, the buyer paid “only” $297,000. And if you think that’s much, you should know that the car cost around $2,800,000 to make ($2.5 mil for the mold, plus extra $300,000 for completion).”

Solar Power Space Stations

If this happens it’s will be because of the hard work that my childhood hero Gerard K. O’Neill was doing back in the 70s:

The final frontier for solar energy

“Scientists are assessing the possibility of embarking on a space engineering project that would eclipse the effort to construct the International Space Station. Researchers from Europe, Japan and the US are considering the viability of building giant solar panels in a low earth orbit that would supply cheap, inexhaustible energy to industry and homes. Building a huge array outside the Earth’s atmosphere would have the advantage of having no clouds to interrupt the flow of solar energy to the arrays.”

Nick’s Nippon Notebook: Capsule Hotels

Capsule Hotels are often mentioned in overseas media showcasing high-tech Japan. I guess I grew to have the impression after seeing travelogues that they were commonplace and perhaps they were a natural outcome of a society used to living in small spaces. Perhaps they were an answer to travelers on a very low budget. In actuality, while there are a number of them operating, they aren’t exactly commonplace, like for instance Love Hotels as business model. Though they themselves are on the decline.

Apparently the primary use of Capsule Hotels for quite a while has been a safe place to deposit an un-sober workmate after a bit too much evening socializing. After seeing an occasional passed out salary-men sprawled on the sidewalk I can definitely see how they solve a dilemma.

In Japan public transportation makes it’s last run on each line at midnight or thereabouts and stops for maintenance until 5AM. While taxis are available all night they are incredibly expensive can easily run up a hotel sized bill for someone a reasonable commuter distance away. So there is a danger of no return when staying out.

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The Astro-Zombies

Terror stalks the streets as a scientist’s human-transplant experiment runs amok in this 1968 cult classic horror flick! Don’t you just love that toy robot that appears in the title design? It’s like they build you all up and then you get that letdown, however vicious Satana (played by Tura Satana) more than makes up for it. In fact I love this fanboy quote from Quentin Tarantino quote I came across about Satana:

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Breakout Cartoonists: Bryan Lee O’Malley

Our Top Indie Cartoonists to Watch For in 2008: Keeping true to our “Anti-Superheroes in Tights” mood at fanboy, we took a look back at the comic books and graphic novels that caught our eye:

Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, by Bryan Lee O’Malley

OK, this series has received it’s fair share of hype, but in case anyone has missed it, there’s a forth Scott Pilgrim book out and it may easily be one of my favorite releases for 2007.

In a nutshell, Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series is about a sort of aimless 23 year old Canadian guy who plays in a local band called Sex Ba-bomb, and falls for a mysterious American ninja delivery girl named Ramona Flowers. Probably because she gets into his head-literally-while traveling through sub-space. In order to date her, Scott must defeat her seven evil exes, which might be seen as a metaphor for the baggage people bring into a new relationship except there are literal explosive and hilarious fights with each ex encounter. Meanwhile everything is implied from this all being a giant video game to Ramona not being the oh-so cool chick she seems, but only enough so to keep readers hanging on for the next volume.

Vol 4. presents along with more of the same action/comedy readers have come to expect, a bit of a maturation process on Scott’s part (and possibly Ramona’s)., as he deals with the likes of getting a job and dealing with his relationship at a more advanced level than previously seen.

Jenny Gonzalez is a New York City cartoonist and punk rock singer. You can see her stuff at jennydevildoll.com.

New York Anime Festival: Cosplay Photos

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The Cutting Room Floor: No Country for Old Men

Today I’m going to talk about a film that’s been getting a lot of critical acclaim. I know, I know, ‘critical acclaim’ tends to be Hollywoodspeak for artistic crap but there are exceptions. Pulp Fiction was critically acclaimed and it was chock full of blood, violence and Uma Thurman. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was critically acclaimed and introduced the western world to Ang Lee and while the movie had it’s moments of pure eastern spiritualism it still stands as one of the great action packed films of the last decade.

Now comes No Country for Old Men. The Cohen Brothers (O’ Brother Where Art Thou, The Big Labowski, Fargo) bring the novel by Cormac Mccarthy to life. A drug deal in the middle of the desert goes wrong leaving several dead bodies, A truckload of Heroin and two million dollars in cash and a dead dog (which is pointed out by just about everyone that sees it). The first to find it all is Llewellyn Moss played by Josh Brolin (Planet Terror, American Gangster, In the Valley of Elah). Llewellyn steals the money with the plan on keeping it and soon finds himself being tracked by the very creepy and insane Anton Chigurh played by Javier Bardem (Goya’s Ghosts, Life in the Time of Cholera). Also after Llewellyn are the Mexican Cartels, a local Sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones and the firm that originally brokered the drug deal.

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Sex in Space

This makes me think of Barbarella and that ending scene in Moonraker:

Astronauts test sex in space – but did the earth move?

“US and Russian astronauts have had sex in space for separate research programmes on how human beings might survive years in orbit, according to a book published yesterday. Pierre Kohler, a respected French scientific writer, says in The Final Mission: Mir, The Human Adventure that the subject is taboo both at Nasa and at mission control in Moscow, but that cosmic couplings have taken place.

“The issue of sex in space is a serious one,” he says. “The experiments carried out so far relate to missions planned for married couples on the future International Space Station, the successor to Mir. Scientists need to know how far sexual relations are possible without gravity.” He cites a confidential Nasa report on a space shuttle mission in 1996. A project codenamed STS-XX was to explore sexual positions possible in a weightless atmosphere.”

Speed Racer Trailer

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This is the first trailer for the upcoming Speed Racer film and it looks pretty grand! The casting looks very true to the cartoon, in fact it sort of bought a tear to my eye…

Persepolis Trailers

Persepolis looks pretty amazing, although it’s a bit odd to see them speaking French in Iran. Here’s the second trailer which just came out:

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56 Geeks Poster

Shown above are just eight of the 56 Geeks Poster by illustrator Scott Johnson. You can order the poster here.

Found via MetaFilter.

The Mercury Theatre on the Air

If your an Orson Welles fanboy you love this website which has mp3 files of the Mercury Theatre radio shows, a great way to fill up your iPod the fanboy way:

The Mercury Theatre on the Air

“The finest radio drama of the 1930’s was The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a show featuring the acclaimed New York drama company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman. In its brief run, it featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. The show is famous for its notorious War of the Worlds broadcast, but the other shows in the series are relatively unknown. This site has many of the surviving shows, and will eventually have all of them. The show first broadcast on CBS and CBC in July 1938.”

Tags: Orson Welles

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Trailer

Shown above is the new trailer for the the upcoming Chronicles of Narnia sequel Prince Caspian.

Doraemon Themed Commercial

The advert above is for the Japanese moving company The0123 and features none other than anime cat icon Doraemon. Meow!

Found via akihabaranews.com.

The Dark Knight Teaser Poster

I have to say that I like the art direction of this poster, it’s better than the same old “just show a big photo of the actor in a costume” approach.

Found via Slashfilm,

Glico Rice Crackers

The design of this Glico package is somewhat bland to me, but what caught my eye was the whimsical quality of the rice cracker character design. It reminds me of similar American trademarks from the 40s, 50s, and 60s:

Tokyo Metro-chan

Yeah! Beat up those no good otaku fanboys! Shown above is a street performance from the Tokyo Metro-chan which was held a few months ago. This cosplay act is based on the show Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan:

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The Cutting Room Floor: Tooth and Nail

2007 was a year filled with blockbuster films, Spider-Man returned for a 3rd (and final?) installment that introduced the world to Venom and brought joy to the lips of comic book fanboys worldwide. Johnny Depp took on the mantle of Captain Jack Sparrow and sailed around the world. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez took us into an absurd world of violence and flesh with their homage to the 70’s exploitation films with Grindhouse.

In the world of horror films it was more of a down year. Films like The Pulse, The Reaping and Captivity netted lukewarm box office at best. That does not mean that there weren’t any good horror movies out there in 2007, just that no one went to see them.

My favorite weekend of the year recently passed by, a new annual tradition called Horrorfest. Lionsgate and After Dark Studios releases 8 new horror films for one week in a limited release. The fun of Horrorfest is watching all 8 movies over one weekend. 3 on Friday, 3 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. By the last film Sunday night you’re sated on a virtual feast of death, mayhem and fantastic situations.

With this being my first column I’ve decided to begin the discussion of the best horror movies you probably haven’t seen from the year 2007 with one of the ‘8 Movies to Die For’ from Horrorfest called Tooth and Nail:

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Pac-Man Ghost Belt Buckle

If you’re a Namco fanboy you’ll get a kick out of this officially licensed Pac-Man Belt Buckle which has the Pac-Man’s Ghost image on it.