Famed anime studio Madhouse has the rights to make anime based on various Marvel properties. Iron Man and Wolverine have already been previewed at various cons and on G4TV, which will be airing them in the US. Now, they’ve released character designs for the upcoming X-Men anime, along with a cast list. I am not the anime fan I was in my teenage years, so the cast list doesn’t mean much to me, but here it is for your perusal.
Cyclops: Toshiyuki Morikawa Wolverine: Rikiya Koyama Professor X: Katsunosuke Hori Storm: Aya Hisakawa Emma Frost: Kaori Yamagata
Jean Grey: Yurika Hino Hisako Ichiki: Yukari Tamura Beast: Hideyuki Tanaka
As you can see in the image, notably absent from the cast picture is Jean Grey and Emma Frost. It can be surmised that Grey’s absence is due to the fact that she is deceased as the show begins. Seeing as it’s Jean Grey, and she does have a voice actor, I’d speculate that this won’t be the case for long. The designs themselves are evocative of John Cassaday’s designs from the Astonishing X-Men comics, which is prudent, since Hisako Ichiki (aka Armor) is also from that book. I like the designs, but personally, I think the cleavage window they gave Cyclops make him look a bit… off. At any rate, as seen in the clip below that may just be his “street clothes” as he look more like the Cyclops we know in love in action.
The show is set to premiere in Japan at the beginning of April, with an American showing on G4TV later in the year.
The last episode of The Clone Wars was easily one of my favorites of the season and I can’t wait to see what the next episode hold. It certainly feels like more old-school adventure films are coming to play and I couldn’t be more excited.
From the official press release:
Having freed the prisoners, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker search for a way out of the impenetrable Citadel prison. The brutal warden has more traps, perils and pitfalls in store for them, however, and the heroes must overcome their own differences in order to escape. After surviving their own daring break-in, it’s time for a “Counterattack” – the second chapter of a thrilling three-part storyline, airing at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT Friday, March 4 on Cartoon Network.
While Taylor is best known for providing the voice of The Clone Wars’ Obi-Wan Kenobi, he does far more for the series than just the staid and dulcet tones of that temperate Jedi Master. In the Citadel trilogy alone, he voices three very distinct characters – on both sides of the action-packed prison escape. In addition to Obi-Wan’s voice of reason, Taylor breathes life into Jedi Master Plo Koon and even the sadistic Citadel warden, Osi Sobeck.
“Most of the time, we work as a cast and we say our lines in sequence. Some actors need to kind of stay in the mode of the character, but [on The Clone Wars], we’re all very comfortable with just switching back and forth,” he says. “So when we did these sessions, it was a lot of fun. There was a point where I was doing all three [characters] in a scene, jumping from voice to voice. I love doing that stuff. I’m a ham. The fun thing about Osi – we’ll see, but I’m sure people have realized who I am actually doing. It’s not an impersonation, but it’s inspired by someone in particular – and as we went through the episode, it grew and changed. We’re not making fun; we’re paying homage to his acting beats and his style, but we’re not trying to fool anybody. Hopefully people will enjoy that and have fun with that, because that’s what we were doing.”
With so much fun going on behind the scenes, Taylor is understandably enthusiastic about being part of an ongoing project he enjoys so much. And while the sessions themselves are always so entertaining, he’s also quick to express his appreciation for the finished product, taken on its own merits.
“I watch the show because I’m a fan,” he says. “I love visually how it looks. I watch it from a study perspective, and I watch it because of the vital Star Wars elements that are in these episodes. I like these fun, swashbuckling, action episodes. That’s what was so fun about these; the [recording] sessions are like that, too. OK, we’re moving, you’re shouting, you’re fighting. The action ones, I can sink my teeth into immediately. I mean, come on, it doesn’t get any more Star Wars than that.”
It’s no secret around the Big Shiny Robot headquarters (Kill-tacular-tron’s unfinished basement) that I am no fan of award shows. The Oscars, the Emmys, Golden Globes, and various music awards – I dislike all of them. I have always thought they were just masturbatory and pretentious. In fact, during the Golden Globes Mr. Simon Pegg pretty much summed up my same feelings via his Twitter account:
And the award for best contortionist goes to the film/television industry for patting itself on the back so frequently and with such vigour.
Now, the context of this tweet may have been tongue in cheek, only Simon Pegg could note his true feelings about this, but none-the-less, this simple tweet rang true for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I love movies and many television shows. I spend a lot of my free time diving into various universes portrayed on screen and becoming completely taken in by them. However, the thought of awards for “Best Picture”, “Actor In a leading role”, etc. being handed out by a group of people who are deemed to be foremost experts in film has always seemed a bit ludicrous and self indulgent to me. Shouldn’t these types of awards be determined by the public for whom these films are made? Why is a specific group of film industry folk telling “us” who is this year’s “Best Actress”? And, yes, I know, some award shows do work this way – but I’m referring to the Oscars, the “Super Bowl” of awards shows, the award everyone strives to take home. To me, this makes the whole idea seem so self-congratulating.
That all being said, I feel a little BSR background is in order here. I am one of “those” geeks who also enjoys sports. It’s a conundrum; growing up I would go to soccer practice then come home and read some comics – thoroughly enjoying both. Now, with my organised sports days behind me I find myself indulging my geeky side a little bit more often than my “jock” (for lack of a better term) side, but you’ll still find me following my favorite NFL, NBA, MLB, and college football teams closely and watching all the big games. For BSR co-founder Swank-mo-tron and I, this leads to a bit of conention. I find the Super Bowl, for example, to be exciting and fun to watch. The teams involved have fought their way to the top to play in the big game – winning games in the regular season, coming up with a solid playbook, and playing their hearts out. In my head, they’ve earned the right to be there and that’s what makes this event so epic and exciting to watch. But Swank’s brain doesn’t work that way. Much in the way that I see awards shows, he finds these events to be pointless and masturbatory. I argue that these guys have trained and practiced hard to get to the top of their game to be professional athletes, but it falls on deaf ears – just like when he tries to explain to me whats so great about the Oscars.
In the interest of full disclosure, Swank and I “got into it” a little bit yesterday. I spent Oscar night poking fun at the event and growing more and more irritated at the fact that three-quarters of my Twitter feed took it upon themselves to live-Tweet the event. As we were hashing things out like gentlemen (only three of four “f-bombs” were used) he said, “The Oscars are like my Super Bowl”. Something clicked and I’ve been thinking about that statement the last few days. Just like professional athletes, actors and actresses hone their craft to be at the top of their game; taking on daring and emotional roles, striving to portray a character on screen that will immerse the audience in that world for 120 minutes and make an emotional impact. Why shouldn’t they be awarded for this? Natalie Portman trained like crazy and lost weight for her role in Black Swan and gave a great performance, should her efforts go unrecognized? I suppose they shouldn’t.
I wouldn’t say at this point I’ve had a complete change of heart, but I think I may be starting to understand. I may never be able to get past the pagentry and self-indulgent overtones of the ceremony itself, but I think I get the intentions and what these awards mean to these professionals in the film industry, and for next year’s Oscars I’m willing to keep an open mind. So, I’d like to issue a challenge to Swank-mo-tron: I invite you, sir, to come watch the Super Bowl with me this year, with an open mind. Good food, good alcohol, and an exciting event that you may just enjoy in the right environment – even if that amount of enjoyment is so small it’s unmeasureable. In turn, I am willing to watch the Oscars with you next year, again with an open mind trying to find the enjoyment that so many people apparently find in this event. After each event, we will provide the good readers of BSR with some commentary on our experiences and any new insights we may stumble across during this experiment – possibly finding some understanding and common ground in the gap between movie buffs who enjoy award shows, and sports fans who enjoy big sporting events.
Swankmotron put me onto this post at The Technium that makes some interesting and potentially true points. Basically, in 2009 John Walkenbach noticed something interesting about the price of the Kindle. The price was steadily dropping and if it continued in this way it would become free in November 2011. What an interesting idea right? Well we don’t know what Amazon is thinking…until Kevin Kelly writes:
Since then I’ve mentioned this forecast to all kinds of folks. In August, 2010 I had the chance to point it out to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. He merely smiled and said, “Oh, you noticed that!” And then smiled again.
So Amazon is doing this on purpose and they were apparently waiting for someone to be paying attention and notice. They weren’t exactly keeping it a secret just not openly talking about it. So what kind of plan would they be moving towards if they were going give away free Kindles? I would assume a cell phone like subscription plan where you get the Kindle free on contract and then you have to buy X amount of dollars per month in books/games/newspapers. I’m not sure how much people would like the idea of being contracted to buy books unless the price point was pretty low. With talk and data plans on phone already pretty damn high adding another bill would drive me nuts unless it were around the $20 range. But as Kelly points out people at Amazon are already on this and looking at Prime Subscribers.
Right now Prime gets you free 2 day shipping and starting last week free streaming video just like Netflix. I’m already on board with Prime, I order enough stuff that I’m ok with that $80 a year so that I’m not paying shipping on every purchase and now that we have the streaming video its become even more valuable. Add into that my literary desires and Amazon is getting a lot of my business.
So come holiday season 2011 are we going to have a whole new e-reader model? I sure hope so, especially since this will cause all the other companies to completely re-evaluate the way they are selling their products.
You may have seen our post about the movement to get a statue of RoboCop built in Detroit. Well, the statue fund has gone above and beyond, and it looks like the statue may actually happen. There is just one thing to stop it, which is Detroit Mayor David Bing. I don’t think Mayor Bing is a bad guy, I just don’t think he understands the good this project has done. People are actually talking about Detroit, of all places! The people at Funny or Die thought he might need a bit more convincing, though. They got Peter Weller, the first (and best) actor to play RoboCop to school him on the error of his ways.
I for one hope that Mayor Bing has a sense of humor about the whole thing, because more than ever, I want to see this statue happen. You can still help, head over to detroitneedsrobocop.com and do your part to make the “Future of Law Enforcement” a monument that stands the test of time.
I had reservations about last night’s Oscar ceremony going in. I’ve been watching the Oscars as far back as I can remember and I’ve always enjoyed them the least when someone “unlikely” hosted them. I like both James Franco and Anne Hathaway but they didn’t exactly instill confidence in me. Not really anyone has since Jon Stewart who, to date, is still my favorite Oscar host.
But I have to say I was impressed with the fact that they pulled it off quite capably. They were charming, their jokes were no less hilarious, and they were used in all the right ways.
I know there are a lot of people who couldn’t care less about the Academy Awards, but for those of us who really care about film and the movies, this is like the Superbowl. A Superbowl for normal people who are a little bit too intellectual for their own good. But at its best the Oscars is a celebration of movies, and I know we all love movies. This ceremony was no different. From the opening montage (seen below) and right into the introduction of Gone With the Wind moments later, this was an honoring of cinema and the art of making movies for the last 83 years. And for a movie fan, it’s enjoyable as hell.
There were a lot of highlights in the ceremony, especially for comic book fans. Aside from the fact that two of the Avengers were nominated against each other in the same category (Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) and Mark Ruffallo (Bruce Banner), Best Supporting Actor), there were comic book and geek references abound. Perhaps one of the best moments was when Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law presented awards for Best Visual Effects and Editing and bickered about Iron Man himself being caught in a hotel with a hooker dressed as Batgirl… er… Wonder Woman…
My favorite moments of the Oscars always seem to be those that gravitate toward the old Hollywood. The Bob Hope segment where he introduced presenters was a particular highlight. But I always love the retrospectives of past Oscar winners. The orchestral musical piece they presented was a highlight for me, and not just because they played Star Wars.
But the absolute standout of the night for me was Barack Obama’s brief appearance. Not because I appreciate the fact that we have a President who is young enough to care about some of the things in the popular culture, but because of what he came on to say. As part of a montage of people being asked what their favorite songs from movies were, Obama offered “As Time Goes By” which would have been my answer, too. In fact, I have it as a ringtone on my phone and Casablanca is one of the greatest movies of all time and it’s use of music is second to none.
As far as the actual awards being handed out, there were few surprises. It’s bizarre to see that Trent Reznor is now an Academy Award winner, and that Queen Amidala has an acting Oscar. Inception took home quite a few Oscars in all of the most relevant categories for it.
The King’s Speech took home the biggest honor and I’ll have to see it. But I swear to god if they release an edited PG-13 version of the film so “more people will see it” I’m going to pirate the shit out of the R rated version.
It was also nice to see Star Wars well represented. From mentions of Irvin Kershner and Grant McCune during the In Memoriam section (which had a soundtrack of Charlie Chaplin’s brilliant “Smile” going on underneath), to the fact that the voice of Yoda on The Clone Wars, Tom Kane, announced the Oscars, made my day.
And perhaps it was all of those Star Wars references that made this viewing of the Oscars an unforgettable one for me. I went to see it at Brewvies Cinema Pub for The Big Movie Mouth-Off’s special theatrical presentation of it, and for some reason every time there was a Star Wars reference, everyone in the theatre would shout my name, you know, as though I would miss the reference. It was perhaps the most fun I’ve had watching an Oscars ceremony and I hope we make this a habit.
But until then, keep watching movies.
As for you, is there a moment more than others that stood out in your mind? Or an award that should have gone to someone else? Sound off below.
Every week for about 2 1/2 years the fellows from the Geek Show Podcast have been bringing you an excellent, hilarious, geeky hour of geekiness every week. For almost two of those years, I have been producing a video version of their show for Xfinity’s Utah On Demand system. Their licensing agreement was such that the content was exclusive to them, but we’ve since worked it so that it is only a window of exclusivity and now we’ll be getting the show every week on the internet.
Be sure to check out their website and subscribe to their podcast. The show’s regular panelists includes Kerry Jackson, host of X96′s Radio From Hell, Leigh George Kade from Grimmleigh’s Fiends, Shannon Barnson, my co-host at the Pub Quiz, Jeff Vice and Jimmy Martin from the Big Movie Mouth-Off, and Scott Pierce, television critic for The Salt Lake Tribune.
The Geek Show will be putting the video up on their website, and we’ll be putting it up here as well.
This week, the panel is back in the basement talking about a number of things. Green Lantern toys, Terra Nova, the new Being Human show, SyFy Original Movies, and which comic book characters the panel would like to have sex with (among many other topics.)
Okay- so the title was only a little misleading… This isn’t an official Killzone movie- but its bad ass nonetheless. Kudos to Clinton Jones ‘aka’ Pwnisher on this stylish well put together- and “clean” fan film-
Alpha Team has 4 minutes to get of Helghan! They split up into 2 groups, one upstairs, and one downstairs. While making their way through the trenches, EVAC is shot down, and Alpha Team is forced to make it to safe zone before the air strike hits!
Welcome to the seventeenth issue of Convention Sketches!
We feature a convention sketch here every week. We’ve got a whole pile of our own, but we want to see yours, too. Email us convention sketches you want to show off and let us know what website you’d like credited for it. (bigshinyrobot(at)gmail.com)
This week, Sean Leslie from the Wednesday Warriors podcast sent in this great Scott Morse Hellboy he had commissioned at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con.
It’s a great looking piece and we look forward to see more of Sean’s sketches.
I don’t want to be an optimist, but so far, the Hornet has escaped an exploding car, survived a plane crash, gotten the best of a runaway train, and narrowly escaped a collapsing tunnel. Somehow, I think he’ll survive his car being set up as a time bomb. Sarcasm aside, even though we know the Hornet and Kato will survive, it’s still fun to see how they resolve seemingly unresolvable cliffhangers. But hey, you didn’t come here to listen to my spiel, you (hopefully) came to watch some exciting Green Hornet action, so let’s get to it!
As always, if you’ve missed an episode (for shame!) Click where it says “Movie Serials” at the top of the post for the rest!
