YESORNODC

Sure, it’s silly and immature to post this photo taken halfway through the installation of some huge dimensional letters on a billboard promoting Will Smith’s upcoming drunken superhero pic, Hancock. It’s also damn funny. I mean, come on, adolescent humor and dick jokes are what keep the internets afloat!)

(Thanks to /Film for giving in to their inner giggling 13 year-old)

I don’t read Pitchfork, so maybe this is old news, but I just wanted to make sure that everybody (and by everybody I mean zzvvhh and busyb) knows that Wale’s new mixtape is available for free over here. It looks like DC may finally get on the hip hop map with this kid, who so far sounds like he’s far from a one hit wonder (Tabi who?). It’s not really a concept album, but he has strung together about a half dozen or so Seinfeld samples, including a sick reworking of the show’s opening theme. He even drops an audio clip of Michael Richards’ famous comedy club meltdown, but he uses it not to launch into a tirade against Kramer but rather to explore the deeper meaning of the n-bomb. Anyway, it’s not all deep, though. Dude has plenty of ass-shakers, and no one’s flowed this good over go go music since Salt n’ Pepa. But the main reason you should get this is to hear the voicemail message Julia Louis-Dreyfus left Wale. Seriously.

UPDATE: Here’s some ping-ified love for my homie kyletm, who reported on this at the time upcoming mix way back in March. (Hey, I read EW too!)

Google Street View is fascinating stuff. Oh, and sometimes it’s also really hilarious.

Okay okay, so it’s not actually beer. It’s Kodomo No Nomimono (Children’s Drink), a non-alcoholic brew from Japanese beverage company Sangaria, makers of the insanely popular marble-inside-every-bottle soda Ramune. Kodomo was created with the idea that kids don’t have to feel left out while their parents are knocking back a dozen or so Asahi, which makes perfect sens… uh, wait a second. That’s totally effed up! Until now, I always thought this was the worst thing crack marketing teams could do to instill potentially unhealthy behavior from an early age, but this is no contest. Thank you, Japanese people, for ensuring the future of binge-drinking salarymen and office ladies. Kampai!!!

Box office history, the cast, and the trailer for M. Night Shamalamadindong’s new lame plot twist film The Happening all suggest that this is going to be his biggest critical and commercial flop yet. The photo above does absolutely nothing to support that hypothesis, but it does make me laugh. A lot.

BONUS: Watch the trailer and then post your guess for the “wildly unexpected ending” in the comments. Winner gets to brag to all their friends that they read about movies on blogs.

I decided to attend the opening of Project 4’s group show “The Sublime Landscape” on Saturday night before the ZP show, first because I like to get my art on, and second because I was excited to see new paintings by Jeff Soto, whose dark take on character designs and environments are both surreal and fun. The show features ten artists in total, but thanks to Soto’s current it-boy status courtesy of tastemaking publications like Giant Robot and Juxtapoz, his work is prominently featured on all the promotional materials for the show, even down to utilizing the blacks and grays featured in his latest series. Well, imagine my surprise when I get there: not only is this 2-floor space smaller than everyone’s favorite Arlington bar, but the two small paintings by Soto are tucked away in the office area at the very back of the space, where they were casually hung on a tiny wall above a countertop littered with cheap wine and plastic cups. Way to keep it classy, Project 4.

OK, a quick glance around the multiplex and the internets makes it pretty obvious we’re living in a time of creative bankruptcy when studio heads can think of nothing better to pump into theaters than reboots of 80s film franchises, from the great (Batman Begins), to the promising (Jason Segel’s upcoming take on the Muppets), from the meh (Casino Royale) to the utter bastardization (Michael Bay’s guaranteed-to-suck Friday the 13th). But now comes news of possibly the worst idea of them all. Production company Summit Entertainment has secured the remake rights to what many (your humble blogger included) consider the Holy Grail of crappy 80s movies: 1986’s Highlander. How could anyone even dare to mess with this wining formula? “Actor” Christopher Lambert stars as Connor MacLeod, an undying Scotsman who roams the centuries decapitating his fellow Immortals in a quest for “The Prize” (which is never defined but is apparently totally awesome), aided by his Immortal Spanish mentor Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez (played by Sean Connery, who can’t be bothered to attempt the correct accent). Much cheesiness and swordfighting ensues. Oh, and did I mention Queen composed the soundtrack specifically for the film? Yeah, anyone who even attempts a remake of this gem is pretty much guaranteed an instafail.

[via Beyond Hollywood]

Okay, so let’s pretend you already know that cosplay cafes are nothing new in Japan. These themed restaurants began with maid cafes, featuring cute waitresses dolled up in eccentric variations of Victorian maid costumes who catered to the whims of normally girl-shy otaku customers. Soon after, ladies got in on the trend with the introduction of Butler Cafes, where they could be waited on by anime-haired pretty boys in tuxedos. And now, along comes the Hibari-Tei cafe, whose waitstaff is made up entirely of dudes dressed as waitresses. These men may be even less convincing as women than this picture, but still, the employees interviewed above seem so earnest about how much they enjoy their job, it’s almost hard to make fun of them. Oh, and did I mention there are also cat cafés now? Thank you, Japanese people, for letting us laugh with you, and not at you.

[via Japanator]

You know, If I didn’t already know better, I might think someone at Converse read my little tirade in the comments section of this post and realized what a “marketing genius” I am. How else to explain their new contest, which asks you to design your own pair of Chucks for the chance to win a trip to the Converse factory (WTF?!?) and have your design turned into a real shoe to be sold on Eastbay. But perhaps, anticipating an exorbitant bill for my freelance branding and marketing strategy consulting fee, they made a few lame-o changes to my idea: a closer look at the rules shows they want you to choose two things that inspire you—the only choices being “music, sports, art and fashion”—and then…wait for it…”mash them up.” You know, like mash-ups? I heard those are really popular with the kids right now! Sigh…

(via Core77)

The new design competition from Doc Martens is basically the same idea as Pepsi’s, but at least they’re making an effort to give it that populist, democratic air by opening up submissions and voting to schmoes like you and me (oh, and of course there will also be “a panel of industry insiders” to choose a second winning design). At any rate, it’s a far better marketing move than what Converse pulled out of their ass recently. Hopefully this will be a good marketing move for Doc Marten’s (seriously, does anyone even wear these anymore?), but they’ve still got a long way to go before they fully recover from this debacle.

UPDATE: This post really isn’t complete without this clip from the Young Ones, where Alexei Sayle sings a workers’ rallying cry dedicated to “Doctor Marten’s Boots.”