I was hanging out with a group of friends the other night and they were all referencing this over-the-top ridiculous television spot for some home gym I’d never heard of. A tidal wave of presumptively hostile Staten Island accents and aggressive muscle flexes crashed into the rocks that were my unprepared eyes and ears from every other body in the room. This unsettled me as I watch TV pretty much all day and have an inhuman degree of focus and retention for advertisements, especially the ridiculous ones. And then, last night, during a post-midnight airing of the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget, there it was… the Body By Jake Tower 200:
You’re Doing It Wrong: Body By Jake Tower 200
Checkpoint 2010: Three More Great Things This Year To Come
There’s a lot to look forward to in the next few months. Let’s get right to it:
The Summer of Scott Pilgrim
Back when I was first talking to Bryan Lee O’Malley about his upcoming “Scott Pilgrim” book series in 2004, neither of us ever imagined what a huge sensation it would become. International best-seller, lauded by critics and media outlets, a cultural touchstone for an entire generation of slacker hipsters. Even with all that’s come before, though, summer 2010 will be remembered as the summer of Scott Pilgrim. It all starts next week with the release of the sixth and final volume in the series, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, wherein all questions will be answered, all plot threads tied up, and we’ll all have to move on to something else. A mere three weeks later sees the release of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game on the Playstation Network. The 16-bit River City Ransom homage sports squeal-worthy art direction by acclaimed animator Paul Robertson and an original soundtrack by Brooklyn’s own chiptune power group Anamanaguchi. Fandom is sure to reach an all time high, though, with the August 13th release of the major motion picture adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, directed by Shaun of the Dead‘s Edgar Wright and starring a cavalcade of hip young actors from everything cool in the past decade.
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Checkpoint 2010: The Three Best Things This Year So Far
It’s been an active year in media so far. There have been a lot of great albums, videogames, movies, books and tv shows so far in 2010 and more to come. With half the year behind us, it’s time to stop and reflect. Here are my three favorite pieces of pop culture from the first six months of 2010:
Toy Story 3
It’s hard to look past the history of the Toy Story franchise. The very first entirely computer-animated theatrical release, the original Toy Story captivated audiences fifteen years ago. It’s sequel in 1999 met with universal acclaim, a surprisingly existential family film that provoked thought and feelings in a way uncharacteristic of summer blockbusters. Toy Story 3 had started as a Disney project independent of creators Pixar, but when Toy Story 1 & 2 director John Lasseter became chief creative officer of Disney animation studios in 2006 his first duty was scrapping the entire production and putting Toy Story 3 back in the hands of Pixar to start from scratch. The result is the most emotionally poignant film I’ve seen in years. The final thirty minutes has the entire audience in a constant stream of salty tears.
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The Big Three at E3: Nintendo
Nintendo are arguably the biggest name in videogame history. They practically invented the medium and are responsible for most of its defining moments. After two rough generation cycles that saw third party developers shy away from Nintendo’s outdated hardware, the gambles that were touch control on the portable DS and motion control in the home console Wii paid off in spades, becoming the best-selling units in Nintendo’s lifespan as well as the entire market. Even with all of that momentum, the past two E3s have been pretty lackluster for Nintendo, focusing on expanded audience titles like Wii Fit, Wii Music and Animal Crossing. Would this be the year that the house of Mario finally kicked gamers in their faces and reminded them that Nintendo IS videogames? Here are the good, the bad, and the WHAT from Nintendo’s press conference at E3 2010:
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The Big Three at E3: Microsoft
The day before the Electronics Entertainment Expo even opened its show floors, Microsoft held their annual press conference to show off their hot new software and hardware. Last year, the computer giant tore the house down with surprise guests like Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Steven Spielberg and Felicia Day. This year didn’t bring any big name stars, but it did bring a new, slimmer XBox 360 and a name and release date for their revolutionary motion-control camera Kinect (formerly Project Natal). How was their show? Let’s take a look at the good, the bad, and the WHAT?
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Trailer Review: Pre-E3 (PrE3)
The biggest week in gaming news is upon us. Every year we are treated to huge announcements, incredible demonstrations and breathtaking spectacles, all for the sake of selling new videogames. Even before the show begins, though, some studios are already pushing their hot new software into the minds of anxious gamers all over the ‘net by unveiling hot new trailers. The big announcements are yet to come (What big surprises do Nintendo have up their sleeves? Will we learn anything more about Metal Gear Solid: Rising? Are Criterion really working on the next Need For Speed?) but here are a few of the games already burning our retinas and causing our fingers to twitch:
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PhoneBook – The Next Evolution of Childhood Entertainment
Children’s entertainment has transformed so much in recent years. Hipster artists of the late ’90s have had kids of their own and, rather than settle for the Sesame Streets, Raffis and Doctors Seuss of the past, begun creating childhood entertainment all their own. The lil’uns have quasi-educational albums from They Might Be Giants (No!, Here Come The ABCs, 123s and Science), picture books from Mo Willems (Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus!, Knuffle Bunny) and daytime television in the form of Yo Gabba Gabba! Keita Takahashi, creator of the wildly popular Katamari Damacy videogames, is preparing to design schoolyard playgrounds.
As our modern creatives adapt to the youth entertainment of yore, it so follows that the classic forms of entertainment must adapt themselves to modern creators. It is with that evolutionary step in mind that Mobile Art Lab has produced PhoneBook – Popo and Momo Ride! Ride!, a traditional picturebook that incorporates a custom iPhone app inside windows of the pages:
This Week in What the WHAT?: Disney Skanks
One of the leading trends of comics in the 1990s was rampant over-sexualization. It totally makes sense, considering the standard demographic of lonely nerds combined with the fun of drawing exaggerated curves, and was little more than the modernization of pin-up art popularized in the early 20th century. One of the stars of girly comic art from the ’90s to today is J. Scott Campbell.
For last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Campbell produced a twelve-month wall calendar with racy interpretations of fairie tale femmes. They were mostly innocuously cheesecake, but nearly a year later are gaining attention. Nobody seems to mind the cheeky renditions of Little Miss Muffet and Red Riding Hood, but the following eight are clearly inspired by Walt Disney animated films, and people get pretty hot under the collar when you sexualize icons from youth culture:
My First Mario
Later this month, Nintendo will release Super Mario Galaxy 2, the first direct sequel to their flagship hero’s series of platform adventures since… well… 1986′s Japan-exclusive Super Mario Bros 2 (eventually released in the US as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels). All other Super Mario games have been a whole new thing from their predecessors, introducing entirely new gameplay mechanics and concepts, even switching out the hero to Yoshi for Super Mario World 2. Apparently there was just way too much potential in the gravity-defying, planet-hopping adventures of Mario’s 2008 Wii-debut, though, so here we are with a whole new series of planets, challenges, and adorable power-up costumes to amass a whole ‘nother game of it. Yeah, and there’s also Yoshi.
You can’t expect, though, that everyone picking up this sequel will have conquered the first Super Mario Galaxy. After all, last year’s New Super Mario Bros Wii was a tremendous all-ages hit, and that was a strictly two-dimensional affair. How can people who’ve only allowed Mario to run left and right hope to control the stout hero as he is propelled through three dimensions in the perilous vacuum of space? Never fear, Nintendo’s all over this concern by including an instructional DVD with Galaxy 2. Continue Reading..
Color v. Gender
Randall Munroe is Western society’s preeminent geek. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates may be the big names in the Hollywood pantheon of geek world, but they each lost their street cred long ago (Windows Vista and the iPad didn’t do much to help, either). Randall Munroe, though, he is the new gold standard of geek chic. He worked at NASA. On robots! He does a webcomic. Mostly about math and physics jokes! For April Fools, he rebuilt his webpage as a fully-functioning unix terminal!
In another further attempt at the quest for knowledge (a never-ending journey for the true geek), Munroe conducted a survey last week to determine how men and women identify colors differently. The results, while somewhat predictable, are nevertheless shocking and thought-provoking.
