Седем алтернативни фен-плаката на Епизод VII

Седем алтернативни фен-плаката на Епизод VII, които конкурират официалния постер!

Adam Relf

Paul Shipper

Amien Juugo

Derek Laufman

Adriana Melo

Laura Racero

Phil Noto

Напусна ни художникът Нориоши Охрай

Светът се прости с един невероятен талант. На 27 октомври ни напусна художникът и илюстратор Нориоши Охрай (Noriyoshi Ohrai 生頼 範義). Японският майстор ще остане в историята със своите ярки, драматични и запомнящи се плакати. Киноманите и почитателите на фантастиката ще го запомнят с плакатите на филмите за Годзила, „Господарят на зверовете”, „Лудият Макс”, „Дяволчетата” и още редица други. За геймърите името му винаги ще се свързва с незабравимата му работа по игрите от серията Metal Gear Solid. Създателят на MGS, Хидео Коджима, сподели в Туитър: „Израснах с изкуството и илюстрациите на Нориоши Охрай. Мечтата на моето детство се сбъдна, когато той направи илюстрациите му за MGS и Анубис. Благодаря!”

Феновете на „Междузвездни Войни” ще продължават да се възхищават на творчеството му по вселената на Джордж Лукас. Орхай е отговорен за японските плакати на класическата трилогия, както и за едни от най-красивите и завладяващи плакати по Сагата изобщо. Художник е и на много Star Wars корици, включително тези на манга адаптациите по Епизоди ІV, V и VІ.
Последно сбогом и поклон!

Фейсбук страницата на художника: https://www.facebook.com/noriyoshiohrai

Robot Overlords is overloaded with awesome!

I can't help it but cheer for this movie! And here's why:

It's like Dr. Who meets the Goonies! It's a brave all-age indie sci-fi adventure! It's the type of film that is centered around kids and teen characters, and still is not dumbed down as a kids-only film - something that you almost never get these days, with all the major studios "playing it safe". We had such films, but mostly in the 80s - stuff like "The Last Starfighter", "The Gremlins", "E.T.", "*batteries not included", "Flight of the Navigator" and "Short Circuit"... I mean, it is not today's kids movie, it does not seek to be mild or comedic or innocent, and it does not aim consciously at a specific target audience - it is just out there for whoever feels like watching it and it does not categorize or underestimate its audience. You cannot actually tell if it's made for teens, kids, young adults, family film, sci-fi fans... And I salute this boldness! In the recent decade there have been so few such films, in fact at the moment I can only think of J.J. Abrams' "Super 8", Joe Dante's "The Hole" and Garth Jennings' "Son of Rambow".

It feels like a film made with heart! It has enthusiasm written all over it! I do not want to spoil or give out the story, go watch the trailer if you'd like. Anyway, such films are best enjoyed when you let them surprise you, no expectations needed! I will tell you about the atmosphere! If you have watched any British, Australian or Canadian sci-fi TV series for younger audience, things like "Aquilla", "Escape from Jupiter", "Return to Jupiter", "The Odyssey"...

The acting is good, I really enjoyed all the characters, and by the way, is Gillian Anderson actually getting younger and hotter with time?! Geez, she looks so much better here than in The X-files! As far as the SFX and the CGI go - the digital effects may not be top notch, but do you actually need them to be? "Robot Overlords" has it all right where it counts! It's it's clearly done on a budget, it does not look like a 200-million-dollar picture, but I am so tired of shallow "all style and no substance" hyped up blockbusters that I even enjoy this indie feel of the film. Don't get me wrong - there's plenty of special effects (it's not all in the trailer, like with so many B-movies these days), and the effects are pretty decent and perfectly satisfactory. It's much better than anything you'd see on the SyFy channel for sure.

The camera-work and the editing, may not attract attention to themselves, but they are elements which often work best when unnoticed, which is exactly the case here. It's all on a level, none of that shaky cam and fast cuts which spread like a tumor in today's action scenes. The film's colour palette is eye-pleasing. The film is by no means gloomy and at the same time delivers a feeling of tension and peril with a pinch distopian atmosphere.

For me, "Robot Overlords" has all the elements of a modern sci-fi cult classic! I certainly hope it gets the attention and the recognition it deserves.

p.s. - It's not a flawless movie, but I give it 10 out of 10 to boost it's IMDb rating cause it's worth so much more than the current 4.something!

Riese: Kingdom Falling

Riese: Kingdom Falling is a science fiction-fantasy series which debuted online on November 2, 2009. The series is about a traveller named Riese, a wanderer, who flees across the wartorn lands of Eleysia with her wolf, Fenrir. Hunted by a terrifying religious group, The Sect, Riese must evade the assassins that have been sent to kill her and discover their true objective.

A must see for steampunk fans!

http://www.riesetheseries.com/

YouTube links to all 10 episodes!
Support the series and keep your fingers crossed for Season 2!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5yXCfzcVhw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUQOYPcuKu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx30BYoPz-8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUDw4Hp-S1U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li0FWktlVV8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qgpIVkcDq8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9WIsrKFZV8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8kw4tNiAYg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyOMW3sgkqg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7vEWJw8GNI

Poster of the Week #24 - Turtles Forever

It's the Turtles' 25th Anniversary, and what better way to c elebrate it than bring out a new movie!! "Turtles Forever" is the ultimate treat for all TMNT fans out there, where the new (4Kids TV series) Turtles meet the classic ones from the 80s series, and as far as I know the original Turtles from Eastman and Laird's firts comic books will also appear!!

Cowabanga!

Poster of the Week #23

"We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story" aka "4 Dinos in New York"

The latest addition to my DVD collection - one of my animated favourites, produced by Steven Spielberg. Certainly an appealing poster by the master Drew Struzan :)

Poster of the Week #22

Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price - all of them on one poster... this is just EPIC!

"House of the Long Shadows" is the last film in which old friends Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee had the chance to be together.

ps. The fourth one, whose name is not on the poster for some reason, is western/horror vet John Carradine - David/Roberth/Bruce/Keith Carradine's father.

Poster of the Week #21

Renato Cesaro has done some amazing posters for Conan, Rambo, Total Recall, Escape from New York... Maybe soon you will see some of them posted on my blog. But today it is time for my favourite: FLASH GORDON

I absolutely love the movie, and about 5 years ago as a tribute I did a drawing of my comic book character Jmork, inspired by this poster and one of Boris Vallejo's paintings.

For more of my drawings and comics I did back in high-school you can visit: http://class-z.hit.bg/comics2.html

Poster of the Week #19 & 20

Albert Pyun is one of my favourite B-movie directors, which is not surprising since I have a passion for postapocalyptic flicks. But except kickbox and cyborgs he's done some fantasy too - actually he started his career with "The Sword and The Sorcerer" (1982)

The second poster is by Peter Andrew Jones, a renowned illustrator and cover artist - take a look at some of his works

The news is that Pyun is just about to release a sequel to "The Sword and the Sorcerer", titled "Tales of an Ancient Empire", starring Christopher "The Highlander" Lambert and Kevin "Hercules" Sorbo. Hopefully it will be enjoyable. Hopefully...

Poster of the Week #18

Godzilla (1984)
Simply awesome!

Poster of the Week #17

After I've been disappointed by most of the movies that come out lately (unfortunately including the much anticipated "Fanboys"), I decided to watch something really classy :) - "America 3000"
Canon Films / Golan-Globus production - this is enough to get my attention, but when we're talkin' 80s postapocalyptic B-movie - it's simply a must!
The poster as usual looks way better than the movie itself, and the Yeti thing with the boombox is the best thing in there, surely made me laugh :)

Poster of the Week #16 + Art #5

I suddenly realized that my Art rubric has been greatly neglected... I realize that all the stuff I post, like comics, posters, shorts, animation and so on IS art, but this rubric was meant for VISUAL stuff, STILL images, like graphics and paintings and concept thingies... The idea was to tell a few words about some artist in each issue. So...

Eric Tan - the guy responsible for the neat retro poster campaigns for Pixar's "The Incredibles", "Ratatouile" and "Wall-E" :) You can check out his artwork at - http://erictanart.blogspot.com/

And one of his latest creations is a Beastie Boys poster, inspired by the "Intergalactic" video :)

Hollywood is on a roll with Robert E. Howard - Poster of the Week #15 + Animation #27 + Movies #23

After last week's "Solomon Kane" I decided to go on with another character from Robert E. Howard's universe, the she-devil with a sword, Red Sonja. There are several teaser posters out there, but so far this one is my favourite. 15 years after Brigitte Nielsen, Rose McGowan is about to step into Red Sonja's shoes... or should we say bra?

And if you wanna spoil yourself, you can read the plot outline here

Besides, the long anticipated and delayede animated feature "Conan: Red Nails" is scheduled to premiere in December, hopefully it will be worth waiting for! I'm always eager to get some more mature oriented animated story, especially when we're talking one of my favourite characters here. Ron Pearlman will provide Conan's voice and Mark Hamill, as usual, the bad guy Tolkemec. Visit the official website http://www.conanrednails.com/ for concept art, wallpapers and other eye-candy stuff.

And if you still can't get enough of Robert E. Howar's characters on screen, Hancock's director, Peter Berg will be responsible for the adaptation of Bran Mak Morn (and a DUNE remake by the way! both) scheduled for 2010.

by the way, Bran Mak Morn has absolutely nothing to do with our "Bran" project, which i s a sci-fi story intertwined with an ancient Celtic legend - www.futureblaze.com

Books #3

Ето нещо, което пристигна днес и още дълго време няма да мога да му се нарадвам :)

Паричките не са му малко, но си заслужават!

http://www.knigomania.bg/product_info.php?products_id=898895

SCI-FI ART: A Graphic History. (Steve Holland, Alex Summersby), “Ilex“
[Steve Holland, Alex Summersby] - [Ilex]

Author: Steve Holland, Alex Summersby

Price: 45.00лв.

Publisher: Ilex
Year: 2009
Language: английски
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9781905814398
ID code: 21514398

You can find this title in "Knigomania" bookstores:
- Левски 28
- Orange
- Mall of Sofia

Item description
'Takes on Banister Fletcher on his own ground and beats him hollow with a combination of lucid, well informed text and pictures ...the images make browsing a pleasure ...if I were teaching a survey course of architectural history, I would choose this as the course book' - Art Quarterly . Updated and improved for the new edition, this is a core student text with course adoptions around the world. This book comprises both a detailed survey of Western architecture, including Pre-Columbian America, and an introduction to architecture from the Middle East, India, Russia, China, and Japan. This text encourages readers to examine the pragmatic, innovative, and aesthetic attributes of buildings. Artistic, economic, environmental, political, social and technological contexts are discussed.

Инфо на официалния сайт на издателството: http://www.ilex-press.com/product/?pid=22297

Инфо в Амазон: http://www.amazon.com/Sci-Fi-Art-Graphic-Steve-Holland/dp/0061684899

(btw това е ъпдейтнато издание с нови попълнения)

Animation #27 & 28

I got my hands on a copy of Paul Grimault's brilliant and quite rare animated film Le Roi et l'oiseau (The King and the Mockingbird), based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale. The only two dub versions available as far as I know - the original French audio track, and the Japanese dub released by Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki points the film as one of his major influences and inspirations. The movie has been over three decades in the making and today it is regarded as one of the masterpieces in animation. I also found English subtitles, which is great since I don't speak French...

And guess what? I found it also on YouTube! Watch the English subbed French here: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=subbedfilms&view=videos

The same user uploaded Kirikou and the Sorceress (French: Kirikou et la sorcière) - an award-winning 1998 French-Belgian animated feature film written and directed by Michel Ocelot. A sequel, Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (Kirikou et les bêtes sauvages) was released in 2005. Ocelot's latest film is Azur et Asmar, and I posted a trailer to it some time ago.

Poster of the Week #14

Concept poster for the upcoming movie (to be released October 2009) based on Robert E. Howard's characer Solomon Kane, it looks a lot better than the photo poster of the movie (which heavily reminds of Van Helsing).

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Kane_(film)

Poster of the Week #13

Just look at it - it just smells like old school classic :)

Poster of the Week #12

Who said all the posters I put here should be from movies only? ;)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is an interactive cinematic experience by itself.

The Baron Against The Demons

El Barón contra los Demonios aka The Baron Against The Demons aka Star Troopers is a movie I want to see desperately! It looks just brilliand and I've been looking for it for more than two years, but still can't get my hands on it.

Check out the official website: http://www.elbaroncontralosdemonios.com/

Poster of the Week #11

I'm not interested in the anime itself, it's not my kind of plot, but I still love the Black Heaven poster!