With the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back just a couple weeks ago, a few Episode V gems are sstill leaking out. Since Craig Miller, publicist for the first two Star Wars movies, didn’t have the internet geek blogs to spread word about the 1980 sequel, he had the cast record promotional messages for an 800 number. The messages, recorded by Anthony Daniels, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and James Earl Jones, crashed AT&T’s 800-number system, and turned into more publicity than Miller could’ve ever envisioned.
The internet has been sucking all day today, with stupid stories about primary elections, oil spills and other unimportant things, and I was about to call it a day until I saw this on iKnowtheLedge. This Saturday at Long Island City’s NYC Paintball, the cast of the greatest television program of all time* will duke it out on the field of battle in support of actor Jamie Hector’s charity, Moving Mountains. Now, the charity’s website is down at the moment for one of two reasons. The concept is so awesome, the whole internet is visiting the site for more info, or someone is playing a cruel, cruel joke on me, knowing my penchant for both The Wire and paintball.
It’s the streets vs. the law, so if the lineup is to be believed, we might be seeing Snoop, Slim Charles, Omar and Marlo teamed up against Kima and Carver. I’ve always rooted for the villain, so 5 on 2 seems about fair.
*I guess I have to identify that the show I’m talking about is The Wire for SEO reasons, since Google’s bots don’t have the level of sophistication to know what “the greatest show on television” means. What the fuck’s your excuse, Cold Case fans?
After a Korean pop star won an MTV Movie Award for his portrayal of the titular “Ninja Assasin” last night (MTV practically begged for him to win, Yao Ming-style, when they opened the voting up internationally), it’s high time for white people to get back into the “starring-in-ninja-movies” game. The American Ninja movies were a huge part of my childhood, and it’s about time somebody else appropriated the mystical art of Ninjitsu for a jingoistic cold-war motion picture. Thomas Cappelen Malling’s Norwegian Ninja may look like some awesome web video or parody beer commercial, but I have it on good authority that this is a full-length film from the same studio that brought us the Nazi zombie epic Dead Snow. This purported true story of Norway’s last line of defense against the Russian and American siperpowers during the 1980s looks like a fun tribute to the low budget action movies of that era, including the elevation of gaijin to the highest levels of martial arts.
ADIDAS Originals keeps its Star Wars collaboration going with the illest World Cup viewing party the world has ever seen. And by world, I mean Tatooine, Luke Skywalker’s home planet. I recognized Snoop Dogg, David Beckham and Daft Punk, that’s about it. Well unless you count Ponda Baba, Chalmun, Greedo, Chachi de Maal, M’iiyoom Onith, Nalan Cheel and Figrin D’an. But then again I’ve always found Star Wars aliens more relateable than Soccer players and British celebrities.
I like this drummer’s attitude. He might be required to wear his hair down in his eyes just like his bandleader and dress up like Fatz Geronimo, the gorilla in the Rock-afire Explosion (my 80s references are flawless!), but he was determined to rock out like he was Animal from the Muppets. This sonofabitch even hit the crowd with the Dougie at 3 minutes, 44 second in! Not that Soulja Boy/Cali Swag District shit, but the Doug. E. Fresh “Dougie” as made famous by Cam’ron as Rico in Paid in Full. Like I said- my 80s references are effing FLAWLESS!
Ain’t it Cool News has given us a possible sneak peek at the new Captain America costume from his forthcoming 2011 flick. It’s by no means confirmed, but when you have independent verification from both AICN and a gent by the name of JoBlo, that is information you can take straight to the bank, buddy!
In a really smart move, the script for Captain America puts Cap in the full-on comic-book version of the costume as the hero is first underutilized as a symbol of American strength and a morale-builder at USO shows; he’ll eventually abandon the more frivolous aspects of the uniform (which have included red gloves and boots and funny wings on the side of his head) for this more utilitarian ‘fit. From the red strap/stripes to the helmet/mask, the designers have done a great job maintaining the integrity of the character, while creating a believeable World war II period costume.
I wrote this title as a play on the increasingly ridiculous “How to Dress Like…” series over at Complex, which I see has gone from chronicling the pieces put together by Kanye West to Diggy Simmons and Jaden Smith. I then noticed that they’ve recently broken down how to dress like a character from Red Dead Redemption, so it appears my attempt at over-the-top parody has failed, and some intern at Complex is probably researching sources for blue mask/helmets at this very moment.
