I am constantly impressed by how much cinematic goodness music video creators and directors can fit into such a short time frame, because telling an epic tale in three or four minutes is no small feat.
Take this music video for Carpenter Brut's song "Turbo Killer" for instance- it has compelling visuals, a clear story arc and the seeds of a strange story.
It's so cinematic I would not be surprised to see it expanded into a feature length film, one which better have a soundtrack by Carpenter Brut!
The Star Wars series is really easy to follow, and George Lucas set the whole thing up so both kids and adults can enjoy watching the films, but as simplistic as the storylines are they still leave the viewers with a lot of questions.
Why didn't Anakin just jump down next to Obi-Wan instead of trying to leap over him? Why was there ever a Jar-Jar Binks?
And why was baby Luke sent to Anakin's home planet instead of somewhere safe and hard to locate on the other side of the galaxy?
Comic stripper JHALL has wondered about all of these things too, and even though he doesn't provide any answers he does give voice to our thoughts about the series in the most sarcastic way possible!
Did you know that Underoos are still a thing? Not only that, but they are available in adult sizes. And if you are a Harry Potter fan, you can get Underoos with the coats of arms for each of the dormitories at Hogwarts. You can wear them and fantasize about being a Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin. Sorry guys, these are only available in women's sizes. Only $24.99 a set. Because there's no rule that says you have to outgrow Pottermania.
The Super Mario Bros. franchise is generally very upbeat, positive and cheery in tone, character design and storyline, and the indie RPG Undertale has many things in common with SMB- except for the cheery tone.
Undertale takes place in the Underground, where a human child learns to survive peacefully among monsters who constantly want to murder her, so it's a bit darker than the Mushroom Kingdom.
But Mario is such a murderous madman he fights right in!
Baking may be a science, but cooking something incredible is a form of magic. And if you want to celebrate the true magic of making something amazing from scratch, then why not channel your inner-wizard with delightful Harry Potter kitchen items like this handmade oven mitt?
Sure, not all the items will actually help you cook -some of them just help you serve, but if you're already feeling like a top witch, why not serve yourself up a drink from this cool cauldron mug?
In the right hands, a cooking spoon can be just as impressive as a magic wand and these Harry Potter spoons will certainly help remind you of that fact.
Most of us who grew up since the 1960s (or who had a kid who did) remember the stories of Clifford the Big Red Dog. But one thing overlooked in the books was how his owners could possibly clean up after a dog the size of a house. One recent Reddit thread explored this concept and surprisingly, one Redditor actually came up with a completely reasonable solution: essentially, Clifford's owners would have to rent a commercial-sized dumpster and train the dog to go to the bathroom in it. The cost of cleanup would come out to around $100 a day, but as he points out, that's probably nothing compared to the cost of food for a pooch that big.
Alternative facts aren't cool, and they will never replace cold, hard facts, but alternate takes on our favorite pop culture franchises are often cool enough to take on a life of their own.
For instance, these fan art pieces depicting alternate scenes from the original Star Wars trilogy are cool enough to be used as concept art on a project, but the artists didn't create them for use in a film.
These alternate artworks were created within a strict set of guidelines, in order to give the artists a taste of what it would feel like to work for ILM as a concept artist:
The guidelines set by ILM were as follows:
Think about the story you are trying to tell with the image - it should be cinematic and convey a specific emotion.
The image must fit within Episodes IV - VI aesthetic.
Again, everything used must already exist within the world of Star Wars.
Stephan Andrade is our kind of illustrator -he's got great skills and he puts them to work on awesomely geeky artworks. We particularly love the way he turns all of his geek illustrations into classic dimestore novel covers.
And his subject matter is wonderful too -from Seinfeld to Bob's Burgers and from The Labyrinth to Adventure Time, the portraits are delightful.
The only downside is that none of these books are real because, after all, with covers like these, the books have to be good, right? So check out his whole portfolio here.
War and peace are both tricky things to maintain, but the guy and gal behind the comic War and Peas have easily maintained their hilarious comic strip for over five years now.
Elizabeth Pich and Jonathan Kunz hail from Saarbrücken, Germany, where they find the climate to be perfect for comic strip creation, and they've been entertaining our eyeballs with their easy to love comics since 2011.
Their strip was once called L.I.N.S., but they changed it to War And Peas "because we liked this one much better", and they craft their strip with the same "less acronyms and more laughs" approach because they're cool like that.
I love weird comic book characters, the more satirical and surreal the better, and my love of strange characters began when I read Steve Gerber's Howard the Duck for the first time.
Howard is everything an oddball character should be, but he was handsome and likeable enough to appear in the movies, unlike that vicious little furball Dex-Starr.
Dex-Starr may have been a pretty kitty once, but after his owner was killed and he was tortured and nearly killed by sadistic humans this house cat went feral in the fiercest way possible- by becoming a Red Lantern.
Humanity lit the fire of vengeance in Dex-Starr's heart, but the Red Lantern Corps power ring he wears gives him the power to vomit rage-blood, which incinerates his foes. He's a bloody cool character for the comics, but too wicked to appear in the average PG-13 superhero flick.
Now if you wanna see a cute little guy rub shoulders with the DC superheroes you should signal Bat-Mite, the imp who idolizes Batman.
Bat-Mite is super fun in the comics and an amazing addition to any animated series, but his toony look just wouldn't work in the super dark and serious version of the DC Universe seen in the movies.
That's pretty much the shape of it for Starro too, and even though that giant mind controlling alien starfish is the reason the Justice League was created it's unlikely he'll ever make it into a JLA movie.
On the other hand, Marvel Zombies seems like the perfect fit for a movie adaptation, since both zombies and superheroes are big money makers at the box office.
But audiences probably couldn't handle seeing zombie Spider-Man chowing down on Mary Jane and Aunt May, so this project may stay buried because it would definitely earn a hard R rating.
Etsy seller ElvesinGlass specializes in felting geek fashion accessories like cell phone covers, berets and purses.
The decorations feature things like solar systems and animals -particularly animal butts like the corgi butt phone cover above.
The 3D detailing on the flat artistic surfaces give the creations an incredible level of realism you don't normally see in felted works. Personally, I want to own every item in the shop!
Darth Vader leads his minions in a little soft-shoe to the tune of the Imperial March. This toy from Japan is called the Star Wars Space Opera “Pop’n Step” Toys. At the touch of a button, you can put the stresses of the real world aside and watch the villains from a galaxy far, far away dance while you laugh.
Those who care at all about Star Wars should have seen the movie Rogue One already, but in case you haven't, this video contains some spoilers. It's Cinefix's 8-Bit Cinema remake that turns the movie into an old-style video game. And you don't even have to control it!
When filmmakers shoot epic movies they use every trick in the book to make the characters and locations look larger than life on the big screen, using compositing and perspective tricks to fool audiences.
In fact, the sets used on your favorite epic movies are often small enough to fit in your living room.
Okay, so the Minas Tirith model from The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of the King wouldn't fit in your living room unless you have really, really high ceilings, but Sauron's Tower certainly would!
The grand hotel featured in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel wasn't such a grand structure after all in real world terms, but in terms of model making it's a magnificent miniature masterpiece!
And who can forget those far out aerial views of New York seen in John Carpenter's Escape From New York, which were actually shots of a few different models of the city.
Carpenter also used a wireframe model made by Mark Stetson to cheat those computer screen shots, don't you love it when practical effects are used to imitate CGI?!
