ALMOST MONUMENTAL

We here at Almost Monumental want to wish all of our readers a very happy and very spooky Halloween.  Isn't it great that its on a Wednesday?!?

According to Bloody Disgusting, Warner Bros. Pictures is trying to get the ball rolling on the live-action remake of Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo's classic anime/manga that takes place in a future cyberpunk version of Tokyo called Neo-Tokyo. The story follows a gang of teenage bikers, and some crazy stuff happens. If you haven't seen it, I suggest checking it out for the fantastic animation if nothing else. Word on the street is that Irish director Ruairi Robinson is attached to direct the live-action remake (previously the director of Blade, Stephen Norrington, was attached to it). You probably don't know who Robinson is. I did some research and I found out that he's mainly known for his short films, one of which (Fifty Percent Grey) was Oscar nominated for best animated short in 2001. The more recent short film he's known for is called The Silent City, whose cast includes Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins, Sunshine). After watching both of his short films, I could definitely see why Warner Bros. Pictures wants him for Akira. The real question is... is it possible for a version of Akira to be any good without the detailed hand-drawn animation that perhaps it is most famous for?

While you ponder that, you can view his two short films below (*Warning* both include violent content in the PG-13 to R range)...

(more...)

Two years ago Keita Takahashi, the creator of Katamari Damacy, told BBC that he was going to give up working in the video game industry and start creating playgrounds for children. Although he (fortunately) hasn't given up on gaming just yet,IGN talked with him and found that he is still planning on designing a playground in Nottingham, United Kingdom. Progress on the playground depends on how smoothly the game development goes for his next game, Nobi Nobi Boy for the Sony PlayStation 3. (To check out early concept footage of Nobi Nobi Boy in action, go here.)

Here's a quote from Takahashi about the playground project:

"I haven't had too much time to think about it yet, but there's the potential of making rides that are themed around Katamari Damacy or even Nobi Nobi Boy. I think that a Nobi Nobi Boy slide would be great."

I'm already jealous of all the kids that will get to play on his playground.

An announcement so big, it deserves its own post here. Definitely almost monumental, if not entirely monumental. So yeah, today's update over at the Dojo!! was that Smash Bros. Brawl will feature a stage builder, and that friends can share their custom stages. As if this game's infinite replay value was ever in question (I still play Melee an average of one hour per day), I'm certain it is now safe to say that Smash fans will never stop playing this one. It will be fantastic.

As crazy as this sounds, Almost Monumental has a sports section. It sits there on the right side of the page collecting dust, waiting for something amazing to happen in the sports world that might mean it will get updated. Logically, today this should be an update regarding the Boston Red Sox's winning of the World Series last night. But no, that's not almost monumental enough. That is not like Division 3 football team Trinity University's miracle comeback vs. Millsap. Did I know who Trinity or Millsap were before this? No. Will I know who they are after this? Probably for a little while until their novelty wears off.

Video:

On Capcom's Japanese website, they have issued a press release announcing BIOHAZARD: Degeneration, the first full-length CG animation film based on the Resident Evil franchise. (In Japan, Resident Evil is known as BIOHAZARD.) Although no screenshots of the movie have been released, I'm already happy with this news. If you're like me and thought the Resident Evil live-action trilogy was pretty bad and strayed too far from the games, it might be a good thing to now see the franchise directly in the hands of Capcom (with help from Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan). BIOHAZARD: Degeneration is currently in production and is expected to be released at some point in 2008.
(more...)

Check out this week's releases for Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service...

(more...)

This week should be a great one for TV addicts because several high profile TV shows are making their way to DVD. Everybody that loves Everybody Loves Raymond (which should mean everybody, HAHA get it?) will be happy to know that the complete series is being released this Tuesday, October 30th, in a giant box set. The retail price is $230, but the good folks at Amazon.com are selling it at $150. If sitcoms aren't your thing, how about some animated comedy? All five DVD volumes of Family Guy, along with the movie, are being released in the Freakin' Party Pack for $100. It comes with a case and a deck of playing cards as well.

The first season of Miami Ink is making its way to DVD as well, along with the first season of the anime Bleach, which is being released in a box set in its uncut form. The complete series of Angel is also being released on DVD in a collector's set for $98 on Amazon. Finally, the summer blockbuster (that a lot of people actually didn't like) Spider-Man 3 is being released. There are several versions heading our way: the widescreen DVD, the 2-disc special edition DVD, the Blu-ray version, and the Blu-ray set including all three Spider-man movies.

Considering I haven't watched much, if any, episodes of the shows mentioned above (excluding Family Guy) and didn't watch Spider-man 3, I personally enjoyed last week's releases much more.

Well it's been a good year for Nintendo. We're almost at the 1 year mark since the release of the Nintendo Wii, and it has hardly hit the shelves since then because of the super high demand. All I have to say is if you don't have one already, good luck getting one in between now and let's say...April of next year.

Anyway, back to the title. In Matt Casasasmassssianisna's blog he talks about a chat he had with Shingo Mukaitoge, the producer of games like Elebits and Dewy's Adventure. In the interview Mukaitoge was very careful not to give anything away on the projects he's working on but Matt did say this:

(more...)

The animated GIF above is perhaps one of the most entertaining car chase maneuvers caught on tape.

Now let's review this week's news. A bunch of Stanley Kubrick films were released on DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray on Tuesday. Upcoming films Rambo and I Am Legend both had new trailers released this week, and they actually look pretty good. Daniel Craig extended his contract for four more films as the secret agent James Bond. We also have a first look at Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.

Then there's a bunch of good news for Nintendo Wii owners. Tim Schafer's Psychonauts might be coming to the Wii (hopefully), Famitsu gave Super Mario Galaxy a 38/40, and Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, confirmed that Spore is heading to the system. Not a bad week. Before I go though, let me once again recommend checking out FreeRice. If you want to check out all the stuff posted within the last week (or the whole month), visit the October archive.

I considered writing 4 exclamation points (!!!!) after the title of this story, but why get excited when the probability of disappointment is so high.  USA Today has published an article about the upcoming sequel to Alien vs. Predator, and have revealed this new photo:

Yes, that's the alien-predator hybrid we were promised at the end of AVP 1.  I hoped that the sequel makers would have just scrapped this idea entirely.  Its just so unbelievably silly.  AVP 1 was awful.  It could have been amazing, but it was absolutely awful.  That said, the trailer for AVP: Requiem is kind of cool.  "This Christmas, There Will Be No Peace on Earth," is kind of a cool tagline.

As of now though, this picture is meh.  What do you think?

James Bond star, Daniel Craig, has extended his contract to play the secret agent in four more films according to The Hollywood Reporter. His first film as Bond, Casino Royale, turned out pretty good and was huge at the box office (it made nearly $600 million worldwide). Craig was initially signed up three films, but with this extension he's doing five films total. That's more films than Pierce Brosnan did. His next outing, currently being called "Bond 22", is scheduled for release on November 7th, 2008, and filming is expected to start in January.

In an interview with The Guardian, Will Wright confirms that Spore, the god game which allows players to control the evolution of a species from its existence as a multicellular organism to a complex spacefaring creature, is being made for the Nintendo Wii. In February, executives from EA confirmed that it was being made for the Nintendo DS too. I definitely expect the PC version of the game to be the one to get (if your computer can run it), but hopefully the Wii version isn't too far behind. If you haven't been following up on Spore, check out Amazon.com's product page for the PC version to see a trailer.

The Hunger Site and Hunger Fighters are very cool websites. You click on a button daily and then sponsors donate food to those in need. FreeRice is a like-minded website, but it has a twist. They've turned it into a little game where you potentially learn vocabulary in the process. They give you a word (example: "frigid") and 4 words, one of which is synonymous with frigid ("cold"). Choose the right word and you just donated 10 grains of rice through the United Nations World Food Program. You can play as much as you want, which also means you can donate as much as you want. When you play there's also a little bowl showing how much rice you've donated in total during that session. If you suck at vocabulary but you still want to help (while learning some words in the process), I suggest using Dictionary.com for help. I recommend bookmarking the first 3 sites mentioned so you don't forget about them. Good stuff.

People are so messed up, including this 27 year old buttmunch, Anthony Anderson. BBC News reports that Anderson, a former soldier, somked some marijuana and drank with some friends. They then noticed Christine Lakinski who was collapsed on the street. What did Anderson do? Well, after throwing a bucket of water on her he proceeded to urinate on her and cover her with shaving foam. If that's not bad enough, wait until you hear what happened next. "A crowd had gathered around, watching and laughing, and the incident was filmed on a mobile phone." This pisses me off.

We recently ran that panda story and now this, so we at Almost Monumental apoligize. I assure you that we like good news, so that will be what's coming up next.