Thursday, May 23, 2013

Project S'More: small is more Opening Weekend May 25 & 26th

M & A are the perfect purveyors of well nothing perverse, unless you want to make something of the rather odd structures they make. These artists are truly the best modern hippies in LA that build the weirdest stuff for no reason and they go over some far out ideas in their text that don't tie together at all. Really it's all about community activities and the cool things they build.

Honestly, if I do horror movies  they will take place in art galleries or I'll asks artist for help there's nothing more scary than art galleries in LA at night.


Materials & Applications
1619 Silver Lake Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026
t: 323.739.4MN8





"Project S'More: small is more, is opening to the public this weekend from noon - sundown on Saturday & noon - 5 on Sunday
. Through the early weeks of June Edmund Ming-Yip Kwong's parametric pressure-laminated plywood structure will build like the narrative of the stories it will house - arcing skyward as it's filled with writing workshops and performances that cultivate community through the sharing of ideas. The hands-on experience will celebrate the construction of the foundational layers of S'More and invite people to visit the jigging stations for a chance to press a panel for the final structure or join us around the fire for S'Mores and drinks at dusk on Saturday. "

Hausu Party! @ Cinefamily


Looks like the party for the horror film House or Hausu was chiller and with it's director Nobuhiko Obayashi there live it was one magical night.

So many inside jokes from the film! Watermelon, bananas, fingers on a piano and one very pissed off cat wall. I want that cat wall for my outside pool area.

                           
                                                                    Nobuhiko Obayashi








Posters for the event, the one on the left looks like it's from Johnny Ryan, could be wrong. The one on he right has a Full House theme

Photo Memory Playland

For a new weekly segment will be showing off some of the arcades and video game stores already written about on the the site leading into the Summer in photos. First off,

350 Santa Monica Pier
Santa Monica, CA 90401




Iam8bit Entertainment System 1980s Inspired Video Game Art

 
The clouds have opened up and the 1980s have been revived by Iam8bit with an all new video game inspired art show. A brand new show inspired by 1980's games will be arriving in LA June 7th, hmm just in time for E3. The show bring back plenty of classic artists from the Iam8bit roster of past shows including Jude Buffum and Olly Moss, wait did he work with 8bit before? Anyway, he's in the show. There's going to be some interactive installations too, Jason Torchinsky, what you up too? Over 80 artists, but no full list yet.

Update: Here's the full artist list including Sky Burchard, Paul Roberston and Gabe Swarr. I can't wait to see the whole show now!

I'll be sure to have updates of what's going to be there and you know I'll be covering the opening night



iam8bit Entertainment System
iam8bit Gallery, 2147 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Opening night on Friday, June 7, 7 - 11p.m (Exhibit to run through June 30)
 

 

Game Hype: Xbox One TV, Sports and Call of Duty



Great video explaining the Xbox One

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Night of Noir Show June 2

Sponsored post


This June it's time for Noir. Sure, last month had some film festival about Noir, but June is going to fill you up some more Noir. Captured Aural Phantasy Theater has it's Night of Noir Show happening June 2 at the El Cid. This time their work will be inspired by pulp fiction, LA noir movies and those crime comics that Comic Book Authority didn't like so much.

Night of Noir Show


Sunday, June 2
7:30 pm doors open and dinner seating begins
8:30 pm show starts
El Cid 4212 W. Sunset Blvd. 
 Los Angeles, CA  90029
$10 at the door or at www.capturedauralphantasy.com or http://noir.bpt.me/

The Week of Noir is leading up to the event and it's a scavenger hunt. You'll be able to figure out clues like a hard-boiled detective from the Captured Aural Phantasy Theater Facebook page the week leading to the show. This means heading around LA and maybe conversing with some people up to no good (they're actors don't worry). They might give you LA-themed prizes. Who doesn't love a scavenger hunt you can imagine yourself being in black and white in. You can talk yourself in your head too, but see a psychiatrist if other voices get in there.



press release after the jump


Wizard Crafts Faire @ Whimsic Alley May 25-27

If you're weekend wasn't already filled with watching monkeys at the LA Zoo how about dressing up like a wizard?

The Wizard Crafts Faire returns to Whimsic Alley for three days May 25-27 for free.
Whimsic Alley
5464 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036

So if you're into fantasy or Harry Potter you have three days of etsy brand stores selling their items with no shipping costs.

Banana Stand Day 3

You can get free frozen bananas and watch episodes of Arrested Development @ The Paley Center today. You can watch episodes until 5pm and get bananas until 6pm. A never-nude contest for Tobias Funke will happen at 1pm. Prizes will be given out to the best never-nudes.

Fast & Furious 6 @ Universal and Arclight May 23


City Walk is going all out with it's 20th Anniversary with a special Birthday Bash. This brings eight Fast & Furious cars on display in Citywalk accompanied by a Vin Diesel wax figure from Madame Tussauds Hollywood for Thursday May 23rd. There will be advanced screenings of Fast & Furious 6 at 7:15pm, 10pm and midnight at the Citywalk Cinemas.

Did I mention the the 20-tier cake that will shoot confetti? The band Midnight Red will do it's rendition of Happy Birthday too.  Be there around 5:30 - 6pm to see the festivities.

Cars in attendance.
 
FAST & FURIOUS 6:         FAST & FURIOUS:                            2FAST 2FURIOUS:
Dodge Daytona                 Buick Grande National                   Nissan Skyline GT-R
Ford Escort                                                                                         Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder
Flip car                                                                                                  Mazda RX-7



All the Arclights around  LA will be having a marathon showings with a special screening of Fast & Furious 6. Order tickets here

Marathon Ticket Includes the following...
2:30pm- THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS  
4:45pm - FAST & FURIOUS 
7:00pm - FAST FIVE 
10:00pm - FAST & FURIOUS 6

Weekly What To Do: See the light of arch enemies





"Arch Nemesis" - A show focusing on bad guys...on the villains, rogues, and scoundrels of the world. And what good is a nemesis show without a few heroes to kick around?

Opening Reception:
May 24th, 2013, 7-10pm

Hero Complex Gallery
2020 South Robertson Blvd.
Studio D
Los Angeles, CA, 90034

Hero Complex Gallery just had the racer art show and now this with arc enemies they are on a roll..
Check some of the pieces here

HANKSY How The West was Pun
Opening Reception: Friday, May 24th, 7-10PM
May 24 - June 15, 2013
7308 Melrose Ave.

Can you even makes jokes on Banksy? Changing it into a pop culture jokes seems like turning it into mush.









James Turrell: A Retrospective
May 26, 2013–June 6, 2014
LACMA
5905 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036

I've already written about the retrospective's Perpetual Cell, but that's only a small part of this tremendous and odd show. Some features require you to remove your shoes.

"James Turrell: A Retrospective explores nearly fifty years in the career of James Turrell (b. 1943, Los Angeles), a key artist in the Southern California Light and Space movement of the 1960s and 70s. The exhibition includes early geometric light projections, prints and drawings, installations exploring sensory deprivation and seemingly unmodulated fields of colored light, and recent two-dimensional work with holograms. One section is devoted to the Turrell masterwork in process, Roden Crater, a site-specific intervention into the landscape just outside Flagstaff, Arizona, which will be presented through models, plans, photographs, and films."


Vampire
May 24- 28
Downtown Independent

A teacher seduces his suicidal students to suck their blood.



"Look out City of Angels! The best motionmaker videos will be hitting a big screen near you! The next Cinema Selects will go down May 30th at 7pm.

Join us for an evening of film, cocktails and creativity."

Free Admission!

Location:
Downtown Independent Theater
251 S. Main St, Los Angeles, CA 90012




Keiko Matsui 25th Anniversary Tour
with Special Guest Jeff Kashiwa
Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:30pm
Aratani Theater Little Tokyo
"Keiko Matsui is a Japanese producer, contemporary Jazz Pianist and composer whose career spans three decades, during which time she has released twenty CDs (in addition to various compilations) and has received international acclaim."




The 2nd Annual Groundlings Comedy Festival
Saturday May 25th 12pm-12am
Melrose

Hours of comedy at the groundings
for $25. Hey even the Black Version is going down too.













40th Annual Topanga Days
May 25-27

A fun festival for Memorial Day Weekend

"Topanga Days is LA's largest, longest running and most anticipated bohemian festival and country fair and returns this Memorial Day Weekend with live music, gourmet, organic and downhome food and beverages from local vendors, arts and crafts and fun-filled activities the entire family!"

Golden Apple Grab Bags

TV Hype: Fox's "Dads" You Can't Look Away From Train Wrecks


Seth Green and some other guy work at a video game company and their Dads come to live with them. From the people who gave you Family Guy, a future failing comedy as the writers of Family Guy can't do live action. I won't give you Ted, which they did, because it still had the CGI talking bear, which counts as animation.


Just watching the trailer the jokes seem dated somehow. I'm not one to complain about Japanese school girls, but it's just one episode. You can't have a series with just one episode of Japanese school girls.

Fox needs to chill until Axe Cop comes out, but yeah the rest of ADHD will fail.

source


Then there's White Label with Andy Samberg as a NY  Detective, eeeeeeeeehyyyyyyy, that was the sound of a airplane failing.

Garcetti Mayor Damn

Eric Garcetti has won the election and will take office in July as our new Mayor. I would have liked Wendy Gruel at the helm, but will have to see how Garcetti does at his new job. I can't write I look forward to his role in the city of LA with how bad a job he's done in the past including his connections to the failing energy car company Coda.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Cartoon Hype: Cartoon Network Pilots Up See Rebecca Sugars' Steven Universe




Rebecca Sugar's Steven Universe is already coming out as a series, but you can see its pilot episode here. With little announcement, Cartoon Network has released a slew of pilots online for new animated shows along side it.

(I'm a bit worried these will be pulled, maybe CN had an internal error and released them early)

-Steven Universe from it's pilot seems like a great show.

Steven is part of a team of gem wielding heroes, but is the only boy on the team. His powers don't work yet. Rebecca can't go without a song in this pilot. For fans of her work on Adventure Time we should have seen this coming. I could break it more down, but time travel used for comebacks already makes it the best new cartoon to look out for in 2013.




Lakewood Plaza Turbo is by Ian Jones Quartely another member of the AT crew. "A wiener is you", the young hero proclaims in the pilot. I'm starting to think all cartoons will be referencing the 80's on CN. A rival superhero mall near a super villain mall isn't that bad an idea, but it doesn't come close to Steven Universe













I'll update this post with more about the other shorts, but here they are for now

Mars Safari, ooh from Ghost Shrimp. Eh the voice of Master Shake does not cartoon it make.

My Science Fiction Project -No

Paranormal Roommates -Generic Sitcom, how the hell did a sitcom from ABC Family get animated

Clarence- Has some potential. About a new kid who wants to have fun and getting fun means problems occur.


People Get Slimed @ ShizNICK



Didn't get to post this video on It's the ShizNICK tribute art show for Nickelodeon from IAM8BIT when the show was up. You can see a few slimes.

Below is Iam8bit's recollection of events with music and fast cuts to people sitting.

 

Superman: Unbound Quick Review

 Superman: Unbound

This was a fun look into Superman's long time enemy Brainiac taken from a great comic arc written years ago. Way too adult for the little tikes with robots spiking people in the head and Lois Lane giving the finger to Brainiac. Most WB animation straight to DVDs aren't safe for kids, but for teens and adults it's stuff they can't get away with on TV that you want to see.

There were some minor plot hiccups as usual, but it all comes down to a fight between Brainiac and Superman that shows off why you need to get outside more.

Oh yeah, Supergirl was in it too. Good for her.

Sometimes the animation just went bad, in some colorful use of no background powershots. When Superman does rip apart machines, sometimes with Supergirl, it is intense

-Sadly, the art style is nowhere as good as the comic that brought Christopher Reeve back from the dead by using his likeness.

-The ending with Kandor was a bit of, hey were not doing War of the Supermen to animation.

Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda in Town

Three Nintendo related events are headed for Nintendo fans in the next few weeks here in LA. These events include a Donkey Kong 4-day-event at the LA Zoo, an anniversary screening of the awful Super Mario Bros film and the return of The Legend of Zelda concert. Each of these has there own magical memories for fans, but no doubt the Super Mario Bros screening will be a much more adult audience. This all leads to E3 and new announcements.



Donkey Kong LA Zoo May 24-27 You're Not Going Bananas

Super Mario Bros Movie 20th Anniversary Screening May 24

The Legend of Zelda Concert Jun 12

Great Reporting?

I love our local Fox 11 News so much. That's Garcetti voting for himself today.
 
                 The LA Times loves puns when a big rig filled with grapes crashes on the freeway
 The last one is just accurate reporting
 
On the day of the Xbox One reveal Brian Ashcraft of Kotaku manages to miss the point with pictures of cats and false reports on Final Fantasy games being over. The new Xbox is coming out today, better write a report on tax evasion from a man who takes pictures of cats in biker clothes in Japan.
 

Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar Parts 1 and 2 Review Kenshi? Not Tenchi?


 Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar, Part 1 and Part 2

I think I've used this in a Funimation review before, but Girls! Girls! Girls! With their current marketing of "Blow a wad" for this release I think they know who there selling this to. Welcome to a brand new harem anime featuring the most sought after boy in the whole school Kenshi. Oh, did you think I meant Tenchi? Older fans who loved Tenchi will be surprised by his lack of being in this show. Instead we have Kenshi a similar version of him, but I think this one has just a little bit more emotion, nah  he's just and air-head with strength. Set in a completely different setting with  mech knights and royalty controlled nations instead of Japan and outer space you have a new strange spin-off.

Just look at the cover, they weren't trying to sell you on the story. The story was forgetful to me, I cared little about the "war" and more of the harem antics Kenshi has to deal with in essentially an all girls school.

So the story starts off in the setting of Princess Lashara's air castle ship, a mysterious mech knight that has a dragon's tail like appendage comes aboard and wreaks havoc. An assassin tries to kill Lashara, but drops his knife before he can do it. We are introduced to our hero Kenshi, whose been brainwashed. Along the way we learn Lashara's Uncle intended to do her in as she recently became ruler of her country. We get a bevy of beauties in the mix with Chiaia Flan, a tsundere bodyguard for Lashara and Wahanly Shume an inventor and new knight for Lashara. After a rescue and a fight with the enemies that brain washed Kenshi into attacking Lashara, because Kenshi is of course a hero and not a bad guy we head for high school.

It does take a while for Kenshi's name to even come up. Average episodes are 45 minutes long, this was an OVA Pay Per View in Japan so there's a lot of quality in this.

Hello, high school girls! The way the tie the high school backdrop to the mech knights is that all the cute girls in the series are mech masters. Yes, that's the term for someone who pilots a mech knight. So they all have to go to the "Holy Land" where you train to become a mech master. Kenshi has the entire shool in love with him in a short while first through his skills working on the staff, then as a student.

So shortly after that you get all the classic harem stereotypes, even a dark elf. They just went crazy with sterotypes. There's a girl in charge type, a girl who he saves, a cute shy girl, an older sister type, quiet type and so on. Each girl does share some time with Kenshi to get to know him, which has them fall in love with him. It's your choice as to who best works with Kenshi or who your favorite girl is.

Where it gets even dirtier is in how this world works. It's not the known Tenchi universe, but another dimension, so no space travel. How the world was changed over the years was that like Kenshi there were others taken from other worlds and basically ran the show due to their skills as mech masters. Those people were perverts.

If anything seems kinky like girls wearing ahem* interesting bathing suits it has to be the ancient perverts of old. The girls get Kenshi into many compromising situations from time to time, but mostly Kenshi resists for no explained reason. Multiple times the whole school will go after him. The outfits the girls wear while piloting their mechs either look like lingerie or swim suits.

Special hi-jink episodes include Kenshi learning to do magic massages and a pillow fight and disrobe vacation match. Yes, they take big baths too.

The story slowly build behinds the scenes, remember those bad guys who wanted Princess Lashara dead, well they also want to take over the school and plot to take over the world by using a super mech that was used in ancient times. You'd think technology would become stronger over time, but no. Kenshi's harem must depart and have a series of battles to stop the war even though it all matters if Kenshi can save the day.

So the story is essentially cute girls in robots are mostly princesses and fight along side Kenshi to save their world from tyranny.

There are some very dry arcs you've seen before like a villain questioning there strength and wussing out. To the dumbest ending for a bad guys I haven't seen in a while.The enemies are a bit throw-away. They never seem to powerful and early on Kenshi defeats anyone who crossed his path with ease.

Animation is high-end with robot fights being as good as Gundam or any current anime robot show, but that doesn't mean they don't feel out of place. We have long stories where they don't show up. When you see them again you forget they were even needed. When they are used and the general tech they use is ridiculously complicated. My favorite would be the super condensed sword hat needs a anti- gravity handle to function.


Dialogue wins

-Whoever reversioned this, my hat goes off to you. There's plenty plays on sexual terms and dirty double meanings to get laughs out of you. "Yes, do like whatever you like" caught me off guard as just being funny.

We so many princess you'd think there'd be repeats, but every girl has her own voice actress to fall in love with. At least they were good enough to trick me then if not everyone has their own.

Connections to Tenchi

Only if your a hardcore Tecnhi fan will you figure out the connection between Kenshi and Tenchi. The series is from the Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki continuity, which is telling you a lot if there's more than one continuity. If you want to get into the harcore fans stuff for this show it also ties to an earlier anime, "Photon", so it can get complex if your looking for answers. The series alludes to Tenchi and his harem through a few words and memories Kenshi has, but the ending doesn't just give anything away. Mihoshi's klutziness is legendary, however. It even leads room for a sequel, which doesn't seem likely with it being from 2009. A certain wing makes a cameo for a second, for those Tenchi fans who get that.

Extras
You have one or two episodes with commentary from the US dub team and

This is a well made harem anime. It doesn't beat the original Tenchi series, but it does deliver in fan service. I mean the box set cover alone is fan service. Though 13 episodes long, it's made back to you in episode length.

The Blu-rays were provided by the publisher for review

Vote Today! Choose Our New Mayor!

It's time for another election LA!

You have to vote today May 21st for the new mayor of LA.

Here's your polling place locator

My vote is for Wendy Gruel!

Bluth Banana Stand @ The Grove 11am-7pm Today

Bluth Banana Stand @ The Grove 11-7pm Today
Free treats

Monday, May 20, 2013

The Kings of Summer and 80's Nostalgia May 26 and 27



The Kings of Summer, a soon to be released coming of age film gets an early preview at the New Bev this weekend. The first night it's playing with Stand By Me. The next night it's with the Goonies. Is there a month in LA when the Goonies isn't playing? So you're getting two movies for the price of one. Tickets are only $9.27

For the 26th and
the 27th

Adventure Time Time: Monopoly: Adventure Time Collector's Edition Review

Monopoly: Adventure Time Collector's Edition


Time to play some video board games! The Monopoly edition of Adventure Time has come out and I played it to tell you it is Monopoly and it is Adventure Time. Do the two mix, sort of.

Off the bat, I'm going to say there were a lot of missed ideas. Some parts make me think no one from the show was involved. Which isn't true, the games tokens were based off Steve Wolfhard's designs, he does work on the show. So there was an actual mix of Adventure Time and Monoply in the tokens at least.

Then there's the missed opportunities. For every part of Ooo listed as a property a generic character picture is put up. There's so much free background art Monoply could have dug up from the show or just commissioned some new art. An a example of a good property picture is the Hot Dog Kingdom, which is an actual picture of the sad little kingdom with a tiny Hot Dog Princess in it. Everything else is character from the show, sort of see the background.


Even the center picture is generic clip art put together. The box art has a funny new design with the ice king stealing money with a top hat. The inside board could have been a new piece of art from Andy Ristaino, lead character designer or show creator Pen Ward himself. It's just some of the Adventure Time crew floating around on the in game board. They could have been dressed with monocles and top hats.

There might be a rule in monopoly theme editions of not changing the four iconic corner titles like Jail or Go. These spaces seem out of place on this board. Go To Dungeon would have been the perfect fit, alas it isn't on this board.

The houses or tree houses and castles should have looked like tree houses and castles. Instead it's the same generic house you've always seen. II was hoping that the houses in the game would be house people. One episode of the series has Finn and Jake defending tiny house people and I thought they make some tine versions of them. One color would have been fine and possibly three generic types. Instead the houses are light green and castles (hotels) are yellow.

The money, it's all about the money. There were so many in jokes to use on this, but Monopoly chose the generic route of random characters on the cash. Putting Princess Bubble Gum on it or unheard of royalty would have been funny. If President Lincoln is part of the show why not keep him on the 5 dollar bill? Why not make it Candy Kingdom bucks? Just some random ideas that would have made it better,

Good points coming at you. The two different card places you can land on in this game are "What the Lump?" and "Algebraic!". These cards go over some past moments from Finn and Jake's adventures, but either one can be negative or positive. There's some cute outline art from whatever the card is mentioning. The railroad is replaced with some good flying creatures and vehicles from the show including "the morrow" and Lady Rainicorn. The game also puts Beemo and N.E.P.T.E.R. for a taste of robot friendship on the board.


Playing with friends who already know Adventure Time will give you some inside jokes, but not that many. They did manage to put in Magic Man collecting a jerk tax, so some jokes do hit their target. I just wanted more jokes to blast me away into Adventure Time bliss. For a hardcore fan of the show there's a lot more that could have come with this game.

This game was provided by publisher for review