While looking around Craigslist last night, I came across a listing for a Life Size replica of Kaneda’s Bike from Akira. Built by Hollywood Fabricator Eddie Paul for Rapper/singer/record producer Kanye West, this Akira Bike is for sale for only $4,000. The only catch is that it is a collectible meant to be displayed, not ridden. Made from steel and vacuum-formed plastic with rubber tires, the bike was built for the Kanye West Music Video “Stronger” (but was cut from the final video). Kanye West and the music video producer signed the bike. Hit the jump to see more photos.
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My original title for this piece was ‘Kanye West Loves Enter the Void, But Not Enough to Credit It.’ Because the video for the Kanye West single ‘All of the Lights’ is dominated by strobing full-screen text missives that are pure imitations of the brilliant and assaultive credits sequence for Gaspar Noe‘s Enter the Void. But while the video sees fit to ape the credits to Gaspar Noe’s latest film right down to the fact of crediting some of the people involved in the video, it doesn’t actually shout out to the film or filmmaker that inspired it. Bad form, Kanye.
Then again, the video already has far more than two million views on YouTube, and perhaps it will bring a new and unsuspecting audience to Mr. Noe’s film. Check out the video and the credit sequence that inspired it, after the break. Read More »
NBA All Star Weekend has just concluded and besides the All Star Game, 3-Point Shootout and Slam Dunk Contest, one of the biggest happenings in the world of the basketball was a new film by Robert Rodriguez. The director of Sin City and Spy Kids teamed up with Nike and Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, along with Bruce Willis, Danny Trejo and Kanye West, for a basketball-influenced grindhouse short action film called The Black Mamba. We showed you the poster and a few trailers for the 6 minute movie earlier this month and now, we’ve got the full film embedded after the jump. Read More »
It was only a few weeks ago that I flew out to Los Angeles to talk with filmmaker Spike Jonze about his adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are. I really wasn’t expecting to hear back from Spike until the next film, probably a couple years down the line. Last week, Jonze’s new short film We Were Once a Fairytale leaked online, and the filmmaker wanted to touch base again and talk about the new project. So I got on the phone with the man himself, on his birthday no less, to talk about the short film starring Kayne West, which is now officially online on iTunes in both standard and high definition video (download it now). I also snuck in a few unrelated questions from Twitter, including a joke question from Up in the Air director Jason Reitman.
Spike Jonze: Peter. Hey, how are you doing?
Peter Sciretta: Hey, Spike. Good. How are you doing?
Spike Jonze: Good, good.
Peter Sciretta: Happy birthday.
Spike Jonze: Thanks. Yeah, it’s– I’m just leaving on a vacation. So I had a great birthday, and then, I’m going to have a birthday trip. So it’s all good.
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Months ago we knew that Spike Jonze would be working again with Kanye West, for whom he’d recently directed the video for ‘Flashing Lights’. At the time we heard the new collaboration would be a short film called We Were Once a Fairytale, but we didn’t know if it would be an extended music video, a true short film, or somewhere in between.
Now, just as Jonze has had a great weekend with the opening of Where the Wild Things Are, his Kanye collaboration has been released/leaked and we can see that it’s definitely in the ‘somewhere in between’ realm. Watch the odd ten-minute (and probably NSFW) film after the break. Read More »
