Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Remember this movie? Red Dawn was a huge movie back in 1984. Check out the photos below of Swayze, Howell, and Sheen. It was recently remade but not released. MGM went bankrupt, but here’s the big problem. In the two years since it was shot, China has emerged into a Mega Gigantic Superpower from it’s merely Gigantic Superpower status. Who were the foes in Red Dawn 2 – The Chinese Invasion? What film company wants to piss off China in any way? No one. Who wants to kiss their ass? Everyone. Who was peeing in their pants? The new cast of Red Dawn 2, the director, the releasing company, and the studio. Who are these guys below? The new cast. Guess who their new enemy is? It’s North Korea. Red Dawn is now said to be digitally altered from being Chinese to North Korea. Imagine… if they were trying to change it from Chinese to Libyans? Or Canadians to North Koreans. Or Mexico to Mongolians? (LA Times – Red Dawn Remake)
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She might have climbed the highest mountains. She definitely ran through some fields. Scaled city walls? Yes. This woman, Feng Luoyu is now 27 but just a couple of years ago, used this photo to search for a husband. She created advertisements the size of street marketing movie posters and had them up. She became the William Hung of China. She’s under five foot tall is/was a cashier, but is seeking a 5’9-6’0 tall man, the dude basically has to be making some cash, has no kids… she is now looking for this man in Brooklyn. The article states that the dude can now have an Ivy League degree. Any takers? Towering Asian Americans who graduated from and Ivy League school, this is your time… (Dailymail – Feng Luoyu)
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It was a few years ago when I saw the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. I was flying back to the US from London and the pilot called it out on the loud speaker. Of course, only one side of the plane had a good view of it, and I jumped at the chance to see it. It’s not quite the same seeing it from high above and out of a limiting oval window, rather than bundling up and watching the sky’s theater from a lawn chair. Feeling the open air rather than recirculating snore breath has to make a difference. In a plane, you’re stuck with the loud engine turbines spinning, but on Earth, you’ll hear the nature around you. Yes I saw the Northern Lights, but I didn’t get to experience it. Perhaps one day, I’ll make it up, or perhaps it’ll make it down. For some of you Northern Americans, you may have a chance to see it in the next few days. There’s some type of irregularity or should I just say “natural occurrence” that’s creating a much Southern aurora. Take a pic and show it to us! (LA Times – Aurora)
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The latest issue of The Asian American Literary Review is out. It’s a major step up in the young life of The AALR in terms of ambition and production. Guest editors Rajini Srikanth and Parag Khandhar, as well as Editors-in-Chief Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis and Gerald Maa, are to be congratulated heartily. The East Coast-based AALR commemorates a decade in Asian America after 9/11. The entire Asian community in New York has seen things change profoundly in obvious ways (racial profiling of South Asian, Arab, Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans; the conversion of Chinatown into a parking garage for the Feds) and in subtle ways (Afghani restaurants took down maps of the country from their dining rooms). It is a full-scale multimedia effort: The print journal collects first-person testimonies and transcribed discussions and interviews, while there are also visual art sections and an illuminating DVD. The pieces range from angry to somber to bitingly satiric. A long-time contributor to Time is eyed carefully after an airport customs official sees a Syria stamp on his passport and thinks the journalist’s chicken-scrawl handwriting is Arabic. A 13-year-old plaintively asks to live in a world “without having the thought of something bad happening to you.” In words, images and performance, we find that when we view the most unforgettable events from dozens of viewpoints, we not only honor the past but also contemplate our future. Pushkar Sharma‘s mindblowing “10 Little Coolies” spoken-word piece from the DVD. One of five of Tomie Arai‘s works in the print issue.
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It’s no secret that Stella Lai is one of my favorite artists and favorite people. (You might remember her as the cover artist of Giant Robot 58.) So I was super excited when my friend asked me to beta test an app that she built with her friends Krister and Jessica. The Mr. Chiizu app, which combines the Neo Print experience with downloadable packages featuring the art of various cool/cute artists (including Stella), is finally out now. Here’s what Stella has to say about it. MW: I think it’s cool that while I may never be able to purchase one of your pieces of art, I can play with them using Mr. Chiizu! Where did the idea for this app come from? SL: About two years ago Jessica approached me about making a purikura app for the iPhone. I thought it might be fun, so I shared the idea with my business partner, Krister. He felt that a purikura app might be a bit gimmicky (he lives in Japan and has seen the waning popularity of photo booths) so the idea sat on the shelf for a while. When Apple released StoreKit, which simplified selling content in-app, we saw an opportunity to make a photo decorating app with a variety of different pieces of purchasable content. As popular as the iPhone and iPad are, we didn’t see an obvious way for artists and illustrators to publish their work, so we thought it would be a cool idea to create a fun app featuring work by our friends and artists we love. MW: Beta testing was pretty cool. Did you get any surprises when the testers’ images starting popping up? SL: The beta testing was helpful and we are thankful for the nearly 50 people who participated. We’d been working off and on for seven months in a bubble so it was great to see the app through the eyes of other people. We received a lot of helpful insight and I think we were able to improve the user experience. MW: I understand you were already bootlegged in China. I suppose in a way, it’s flattering. How did you find out. Was that a straight crack or what? SL: Krister is obsessed with checking our user analytics and about two weeks ago he noticed there was a discrepancy between our internal analytics and our sales reports from Apple. He probably lost a day of sleep trying to figure out why until he tracked down a site where people with jail-broken phones are able to download the app for free. At first we were a bit angry but then we realized it’s just part of life and embraced it. The reviews on the hacker site were very positive, ha ha. MW: Nice acting in the promotional video. You were a natural. Was that the first take! SL: I tell people it’s my cousin the dancing bear. Yeah, Jessica and I did a video shoot at my studio on a Saturday and...
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