Thursday, April 30, 2009

Publicity stills of Megan Fox from TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN.

JUST THOUGHT I'd show these publicity stills of Megan Fox from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen above, and these other sexy photos below... Expect additional images of Ms. Fox after I post up screenshots from the new Revenge of the Fallen trailer that will be released online (officially, that is) later today. I'll post the screenshots tomorrow, since I'll be at work tonight.


Paparazzi photos of Megan Fox.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

SO WAIT... When was this toddler in Mexico? Haha.

Children AREN'T our future!

Monday, April 27, 2009

Helen Mirren, Rachel McAdams and Russell Crowe in STATE OF PLAY.

STATE OF PLAY... I saw the film this weekend, and it’s pretty good. Not very often that I watch political thrillers at the theater (unless, of course, you count old Tom Clancy films like The Hunt for Red October and Clear and Present Danger, haha). On one side, the plot was satisfying (A U.S. congressman played by Ben Affleck realizes he’s being set-up by a private military contractor he was holding hearings on...and uses a troubled Gulf War veteran he was comrades with to eliminate people the contractor sent to spy on him. Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams are reporters who investigate this story...at their own risk)...and on the other hand, it reminded me of the current season of the hit FOX TV show, 24. Which isn't a bad thing, of course. 24 is also dealing with U.S. mercenaries (led by Jon Voight) who resort to deadly means when their business is being threatened by the American government. Thanks for the inspiration, Blackwater.

Crowe and Ben Affleck in STATE OF PLAY.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

FIRST LIGHT... Last Thursday, NASA released this image that the Kepler spacecraft took of the vast starfield (located in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our Milky Way galaxy) that it will stare at for the next 3 years to detect Earth-like planets orbiting other star systems. Pretty cool. I wonder how many of the rocky worlds that Kepler discovers will be like Geonosis? Or Hoth? Or Mustafar? Just thought I'd put Star Wars references in here.

An image by the KEPLER spacecraft of the Cygnus-Lyra starfield, in our Milky Way galaxy.
NASA / Ames / JPL - Caltech

Saturday, April 18, 2009

The TRANSFORMERS 2 standee that will appear in theaters next month.

REVENGE OF THE FALLEN Update... Michael Bay posted on his official website this 2 ½- minute trailer that he presented at the recent ShoWest convention in Las Vegas. From Bumblebee’s performance (and awesome CGI) and Megan Fox, err— Mikaela changing clothes out on the lawn (I bet a couple of those firefighters outside of Sam Witwicky’s house took a peek. Duhhh) to that whole montage of Giant F**kin’ Robots kicking each other’s ass (The Fallen does teleport! It’s DEVASTATOR!!), this video clip rocked.

Optimus primed for battle in the Egyptian desert.

Devastator primed for battle in the Egyptian desert.

Jetfire primed for...something in the Arizona desert.

I’m pretty sure some of this footage will appear in the new trailer that will appear before X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which comes out in theaters on May 1st. Nice.

Friday, April 17, 2009

THREE AWESOME VIEWS...for one last time. That's assuming, of course, there isn't another piece of equipment failure onboard the Hubble Space Telescope before Atlantis launches for the orbiting observatory on May 12. Click here to see images from last year's twin shuttle-viewing opportunity.

Space shuttle Endeavour (left) joins her sister Atlantis (right) at Launch Complex 39, on April 17, 2009.

Space shuttle Endeavour (background) joins her sister Atlantis (foreground) at Launch Complex 39, on April 17, 2009.

Space shuttle Endeavour (background) joins her sister Atlantis (foreground) at Launch Complex 39, on April 17, 2009.
Photos courtesy of NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis & Kim Shiflett

Thursday, April 16, 2009

LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

LeBron James for MVP... For the sole fact that a player who won the award didn't go on to win an NBA championship since 2003 (when Tim Duncan won his 2nd title with the San Antonio Spurs). I didn't jinx nuthin'.

Go Lakers.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

147 MINUTES... That’s how long Revenge of the Fallen is gonna be, according to director Michael Bay. Personally, I think that that’s a good thing. If people are gonna dish out 10 - 11 dollars for tickets, then they’ll be for a movie that’s at least 2-hours long (of course, here’s hoping it’s not bloated like any of The Matrix or Pirates of the Caribbean sequels)...compared to spending 10 bones on a flick that’s not even 90-minutes long (Cloverfield being an example...with an 85-minute runtime). I think it’s better to be spending money on something that may be too much of a good thing, rather than a film that’s not even long enough to be worth devoting your evening to (yes, I'm well aware of that little thing called 'having a good story'). That’s all.

Devastator on the attack.
Paramount Pictures / Dreamworks

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Joker toy figure, sans make-up.

CHECK OUT this website to see more awesome pics of this ultra-realistic Joker figure. I wonder if they have one for Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face as well?

The Joker toy figure, in all its sadistic, clownish glory.

Sunday, April 12, 2009



FORMULA DRIFT... I attended the racing competition in downtown Long Beach (California) yesterday, and it kicked ass. Tons of dope rides, lots of hot gals... The event actually continues through today, but I’ll probably wait till October to go back to another Formula Drift race; this time at the Toyota Speedway in Irwindale (also in California). It will be held on October 16th-17th (see link above). Stay tuned...

LINK: Photos I took at the 2009 Long Beach Formula Drift competition





Thursday, April 09, 2009

The Fallen.

REVENGE OF THE FALLEN Update... Here are a few new official CGI work of some of the 'bots that will appear in Transformers 2. For more cool pics, go here.

Sideswipe.
Ravage.
Ravage attacks.
Megatron, in tank mode.
Megatron.
Ironhide.
Devastator.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

With the core of the Milky Way galaxy in the distance, the KEPLER spacecraft drifts away after its dust cover (on the right) is jettisoned on April 7, 2009.
NASA / Ames / JPL-Caltech

KEPLER Update...

****

Dust Cover Jettisoned From NASA's Kepler Telescope (Press Release)

Engineers have successfully ejected the dust cover from NASA's Kepler telescope, a spaceborne mission soon to begin searching for worlds like Earth.

"The cover released and flew away exactly as we designed it to do," said Kepler Project Manager James Fanson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This is a critical step toward answering a question that has come down to us across 100 generations of human history -- are there other planets like Earth, or are we alone in the galaxy?"

Kepler, which launched on March 6 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., will spend three-and-a-half years staring at more than 100,000 stars in our Milky Way galaxy for signs of Earth-size planets. Some of the planets are expected to orbit in a star's "habitable zone," a warm region where water could pool on the surface. The mission's science instrument, called a photometer, contains the largest camera ever flown in space -- its 42 charge-coupled devices (CCDs) will detect slight dips in starlight, which occur when planets passing in front of their stars partially block the light from Kepler's view.

The telescope's oval-shaped dust cover, measuring 1.7 meters by 1.3 meters (67 inches by 52 inches), protected the photometer from contamination before and after launch. The dust cover also blocked stray light from entering the telescope during launch -- light that could have damaged its sensitive detectors. In addition, the cover was important for calibrating the photometer. Images taken in the dark helped characterize noise coming from the instrument's electronics, and this noise will later be removed from the actual science data.

"Now the photometer can see the stars and will soon start the task of detecting the planets," said Kepler's Science Principal Investigator William Borucki at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "We have thoroughly measured the background noise so that our photometer can detect minute changes in a star's brightness caused by planets."

At 7:13 p.m. PDT on April 7, engineers at Kepler's mission operations center at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, Colo., sent commands to pass an electrical current through a "burn wire" to break the wire and release a latch holding the cover closed. The spring-loaded cover swung open on a fly-away hinge, before drifting away from the spacecraft. The cover is now in its own orbit around the sun, similar to Kepler's sun-centric orbit. See an animation of the event at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/multimedia/videos/cover.html.

With the cover off, starlight is entering the photometer and being imaged onto its focal plane. Engineers will continue calibrating the instrument using images of stars for another several weeks, after which science observations will begin.

Kepler is a NASA Discovery mission. NASA's Ames Research Center Ames is the home organization of the science principal investigator, and is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo., is responsible for developing the Kepler flight system and supporting mission operations.

Source: NASA.Gov

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Nicolas Cage and Rose Byrne in KNOWING.

KNOWING... I saw the Nicolas Cage film last weekend, and um...hmm. So wait— Is this movie trying to be like War of the Worlds (both the old one and the 2005 Spielberg version), The Day the Earth Stood Still (both the old one and last year’s Keanu Reeves version), Independence Day (ID4), The Day After Tomorrow or National Treasure (meets The Da Vinci Code)? Apparently, all of the above. Yea, I don’t think this movie is obviously gonna be nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars next year...

John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) witnesses a plane crash in KNOWING.

On the other hand, if the aliens’ destruction of Los Angeles, New York City and Washington D.C. in Independence Day looked as cool as the destruction of New York City in Knowing, then ID4 would’ve definitely been a shoo-in for the Best Visual Effects Oscar in '97. If ID4 hadn’t won the VFX Oscar that year already, that is. That is all.

Mysterious figures lurk outside a house in KNOWING.

Monday, April 06, 2009

Ravage, one of Soundwave's minions, leaps from the ground.

REVENGE OF THE FALLEN Update... In case you’re wondering why I haven’t talked about Transformers 2 since, um, March 13...

Scalpel, a Decepticon, prepares to interrogate Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf).
Starscream spits on Sam.
Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox).
Shia LaBeouf gets directions from TRANSFORMERS helmer, Michael Bay.
Two U.S. soldiers are secretly being watched by an unknown spy.
Shia LaBeouf posing in front of an Egyptian pyramid.
Sam, Mikaela, Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson) run for cover.
A close-up of Sam, Mikaela, Captain Lennox and Sergeant Epps running for cover.

All images courtesy of Paramount Pictures / Dreamworks, via SuperheroHype!