Conversations With Bert: Andy Samberg, Part 2

Sesame Street’s Bert continues his interview with comedian and Saturday Night Live cast member, Andy Samberg, this time tackling the important subjects of bottle caps, paper clips and pigeons.

New Green Lantern Trailer Debuts

Warner Bros. has premiered a new trailer for Green Lantern featuring narration by Geoffrey Rush’s Tomar-Re that lays out the mythology for the uninitiated.

The Martin Campbell-directed movie, which opens in 2D and 3D on June 17, stars Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Mark Strong, Peter Sarsgaard, Temuera Morrison, Tim Robbins, Taika Waititi and Angela Bassett.

In a universe as vast as it is mysterious, a small but powerful force has existed for centuries. Protectors of peace and justice, they are called the Green Lantern Corps. A brotherhood of warriors sworn to keep intergalactic order, each Green Lantern wears a ring that grants him superpowers. But when a new enemy called Parallax threatens to destroy the balance of power in the Universe, their fate and the fate of Earth lie in the hands of their newest recruit, the first human ever selected: Hal Jordan.

Hal is a gifted and cocky test pilot, but the Green Lanterns have little respect for humans, who have never harnessed the infinite powers of the ring before. But Hal is clearly the missing piece to the puzzle, and along with his determination and willpower, he has one thing no member of the Corps has ever had: humanity. With the encouragement of fellow pilot and childhood sweetheart Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), if Hal can quickly master his new powers and find the courage to overcome his fears, he may prove to be not only the key to defeating Parallax…he will become the greatest Green Lantern of all.

Conversations With Bert: Andy Samberg, Part 1

Sesame Street’s Bert sits down with comedian and Saturday Night Live cast member, Andy Samberg, to talk about life, literature, cuisine and of course, socks. Stay tuned for Part 2.

The First Photo of Tom Hardy As Bane In Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight Rises’

Here’s Tom Hardy as Bane, one of Batman’s villains, released through the official website for The Dark Knight Rises. The viral campaign for Christopher Nolan’s next Bat-movie has kicked off more than a year before its release.

Steve Jobs Introducing The First Ever Apple Retail Store In 2001

Check out this video from 10 years ago in which a much younger-looking Steve Jobs gives a video tour of the first store in Tyson’s Corner, VA six days before the grand opening. The video was presented to an enthusiastic crowd at WWDC 2001.

It’s amazing to see how the Apple Store concept has evolved within a decade. In the video, Jobs shows off the huge black shelves that used to dominate the center of the store, covered with rows of boxes of Mac applications. Those, of course, have disappeared with the advent of the App Stores. Jobs also notes that they’ll be selling third-party hardware, including digital video and still cameras, MP3 players (the camera lingers for a moment on a Creative Labs Nomad), and PDAs that have since been replaced by the ubiquitous iPod and iPhone.

TIME’s 2011 Summer Entertainment Preview

As the summer of 2011 approaches, HERE is TIME’s guide to what to watch, read, see and hear.

Cars 2: Back Into Cars 2 – Featurette

Meet the “car-acters” of Pixar’s upcoming film in the brand new featurette, “Back Into Cars 2!” This new clip includes interviews with the cast as well as tons of clips from the film.

Trailer For The Upcoming Fox TV Series, Alcatraz

Alcatraz is an upcoming Fox TV series, slated for the Midseason, 2012, schedule.  The series is a chilling new thriller centered on the most infamous prison in America, the one-time home to the most notorious ciminals in the nation.

Alcatraz comes from  executive producer J.J. Abrams and writer and executive producer Elizabeth Sarnoff . The series stars Sarah Jones, Jeffrey Pierce, Robert Forster, Sam Neill, Jorge Garcia, Jonny Coyne, Jason Butler Harner

When San Francisco Police Department Detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones, Sons of Anarchy) is assigned to a grisly homicide case, a fingerprint leads her to a shocking suspect: Jack Sylvane (guest star Jeffrey Pierce, The Nine), a former Alcatraz inmate who died decades ago. Given her family history – both her grandfather and surrogate uncle, Ray Archer(Robert Forster, Jackie Brown), were guards at the prison – Madsen’s interest is immediately piqued, and once the enigmatic, knows-everything-but-tells-nothing government agent Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill, Jurassic Park) tries to impede her investigation, she’s doggedly committed.

Madsen turns to Alcatraz expert and comic book enthusiast, Dr. Diego “Doc” SotO (Jorge Garcia, Lost), to piece together the inexplicable sequence of events. The twosome discovers that Sylvane is not only alive, but he’s loose on the streets of San Francisco, leaving bodies in his wake. And strangely, he hasn’t aged a day since he was in Alcatraz, when the prison was ruled by the iron-fisted Warden Edwin James (Jonny Coyne, Undercovers) and the mercilessAssociate Warden E.B. Tiller (Jason Butler Harner, The Changeling). Madsen and Soto reluctantly team with Agent Hauser and his technician, Lucy Banerjee (Parminder Nagra, ER), to stop Sylvane’s vengeful killing spree.

By delving into Alcatraz history, government cover-ups and Rebecca’s own heritage, the team will ultimately discover that Sylvane is only a small part of a much larger, more sinister present-day threat. For while he may be the first, it quickly becomes clear that Sylvane won’t be the last prisoner to reappear from Alcatraz. Through the course of the investigation, Madsen and Soto will learn that Agent Hauser has known about the prison’s secret history and has been awaiting the prisoners’ return. Soto will witness his life’s work – the history of Alcatraz – come alive. Madsen will be forced to keep her supportive San Francisco cop fiance, Jimmy Dickens (Santiago Cabrera, Heroes), at arm’s length from the highly classified assignment as she sees everything she thought she knew about her family’s past shattered, all while fighting to keep the country safe from history’s most dangerous criminals.

LEGO Master Builder Academy

In LEGO Master Builder Academy, members learn the unique skills of LEGO Master Builders through a structured journey of lessons, interactive inspiration and rewards.

LEGO fans will learn the steps to designing and building their own unique creations with advanced new skills. Every level is a new world of building to explore! Kits range from $30 and up.

Trailer For The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson collaborated on The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn, a motion capture 3D film version of the classic Belgian children’s book by Georges “Hergé” Remi. The film is scheduled for release on December 23.

Blues Brothers Comes to Blu-ray July 26, 2011

Comedy icons John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd star in the outrageously funny musical comedy The Blues Brothers. After the release of Jake Blues (Belushi) from prison, he and brother Elwood (Aykroyd) take their blues band back on the road in an attempt to raise money for the orphanage where they were raised. Havoc ensues as the brothers seek redemption on their “mission from God”. Directed by John Landis (National Lampoon’s Animal House), the soul-stirring comedy classic features musical performances by blues legends Ray Charles, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Cab Calloway.

Special Features include:

- Extended Version (2 Hours 28 Minutes)

- Stories Behind the Making of The Blues Brothers

- Transposing The Music

- Remembering John

- Theatrical Trailer

- BD-Live

- My Scenes

- Pocket BLU App

- D-BOX

The Muppets Poster Revealed

Directed by James Bobin with a script by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, the November 23rd release stars Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper and many, many more.

The focus of the story is Walter, the world’s biggest Muppet fan, and his friends Gary (Segel) and Mary (Adams), Together, they discover the nefarious plan of oilman Tex Richman (Cooper) to raze the Muppet Theater and drill for the oil recently discovered beneath the Muppets’ former stomping grounds. To stage The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever and raise the $10 million needed to save the theater, Walter, Mary and Gary help Kermit reunite the Muppets, who have all gone their separate ways: Fozzie now performs with a Reno casino tribute band called the Moopets, Miss Piggy is a plus-size fashion editor at Vogue Paris, Animal is in a Santa Barbara clinic for anger management, and Gonzo is a high-powered plumbing magnate.

Cast of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory Reunited After 40 Years

The Today Show reunited the surviving cast members of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory to mark the 40th anniversary of Mel Stuart’s cult classic. For record, Gene Wilder is very much alive, but sadly couldn’t be in attendance.

Areaware Alarm Dock For The iPhone

Turn your iPhone into a full-on alarm clock using nothing but a handsome piece of wood with the Areaware Alarm Dock ($35). Designed by Jonas Damon, this simple piece of beech wood works in conjunction with an app to bring that classic flip clock look to your desk or nightstand, while a cutout keeps your phone powered up while it’s docked. (From Uncrate)

Cereal Killer Trading Cards

Newborn company Wax Eye releases its first product, all-new Cereal Killers Trading Cards, written and painted by Joe Simko, artist for Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packages, Misfits, GWAR, Van’s Warped Tour, etc. Each Cereal Killers card is an original piece of artwork that parodies popular cereal brands by giving them horror-flick mash-up makeovers.

Children of the Corn Flakes, Halloweeties, and Exorcrisp Cereal are just a few titles in this eye-popping 55 card set. Cereal Killers lampoons right down to its packaging; encased in three shrink-wrapped mini-cereal boxes, each box gives the impression of containing real breakfast cereal. In actuality, each box contains 20 hilariously-horrifying cards, 60 cards per set. Also included in each box are an eyeball gum plus one random premium gift, which could be a black-light sticker, a temporary tattoo, a ‘fridge magnet, a gold foil card, or one of 250 original, hand-drawn sketch cards by Simko himself. Sketch cards are the latest phenomena in the collectible card industry. It is a modern affordable way to obtain original art work. With Cereal Killers, Wax Eye hopes to rejuvenate this community as well, capturing the nostalgia of Garbage Pail Kids and Wacky Packages cards in a present-day, renegade art form.

Ben Hess, our youngest FIRE WIRE Correspondent reviewed the cards below. Ben loved the packaging, card art and the special goodies!

The Artsy New Poster For “The Office”

NBC showed this new art of the cast of The Office at their upfront today.  Here’s the cast re-interpreting the classic Georges Seurat painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”

National Lampoon’s Animal House Comes to Blu-ray July 26th, 2011

Starring comedy legend John Belushi, National Lampoon’s Animal House is the ultimate college movie filled with food fights, fraternities and toga parties! Follow the uproarious escapades of the Delta House fraternity as they take on Dean Wormer (John Vernon), the sanctimonious Omegas, and the entire female student body. Directed by John Landis (The Blues Brothers), the most popular college comedy of all-time also stars Tim Matheson, Donald Sutherland, Karen Allen, Kevin Bacon, Tom Hulce and Stephen Furst along with Otis Day and the Knights performing their show-stopping rendition of ‘Shout’.

Special Features include:

- U-Control: Scene Companion

- U-Control:The Music of Animal House

- The Yearbook: An Animal House Reunion

- Where Are They Now?  A Delta Alumni Update

- Scene It? Animal House Games

- Theatrical Trailer

- BD-Live

- My Scenes

- Pocket BLU App

Pixar’s Monsters University Logo Revealed

Pixar has revealed the logo for the 2013 film, Monsters University.

Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan are an inseparable pair, but that wasn’t always the case. From the moment these two mismatched monsters met they couldn’t stand each other. “Monsters University” unlocks the door to how Mike and Sulley overcame their differences and became the best of friends. Billy Crystal and John Goodman reprise their roles in the prequel as the wise-cracking Mike Wazowski and lovable Sulley.

Screaming with laughter and fun, “Monsters University” is directed by Dan Scanlon (“Cars,” “Mater and the Ghostlight,” “Tracy”) and produced by Kori Rae (“Up,” “The Incredibles,” “Monsters, Inc.”). The film opens in U.S. theaters on June 21, 2013, and will be shown in Disney Digital 3D in select theaters.

 

Update on Disney California Adventure Park Expansion

With the opening of The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure on June 3 and the completed transformation of Paradise Pier on July 1, big changes keep coming for Disney California Adventure park.

Check out the video below for a behind-the-scenes look at the construction progress in Cars Land, which will open in 2012. Also featured are the many updates coming to the park’s entrance, which will take guests back to 1920s Los Angeles as it appeared when Walt Disney first arrived there.

The Great American Cereal Book – How Breakfast Got Its Crunch

Americans love their breakfast cereal, which is second only to milk and soda in supermarket spending. Cereals and their cartoon spokescharacters are some of the most enduring pop-culture icons of the 20th century. The Great American Cereal Book ($19.95) is the definitive compendium of breakfast cereal history and lore, celebrating the most recognizable brands and packaging, such as Cheerios, Cocoa Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Grape-Nuts, and Trix. Award-winning writer Marty Gitlin and co-author Topher Ellis provide behind-the-scenes stories about the creation of these iconic kitchen-table companions, with 350 images of cereal boxes, vintage ads, and rare memorabilia. The 368 page hardcover book is due in stores on October 1, 2011.

Watching TV On An iPad

Television programs, like music and books, are migrating from their traditional form of delivery to transmission over the Internet for consumption on computers, tablets and smartphones. A growing number of people, at least some of the time, are choosing to watch shows on these devices rather than on television sets. Read Walt Mosberg’s thoughts about TV apps on the iPad HERE.

Olly Moss Art Show At Gallery 1988

Olly Moss created these incredible paper-cut silhouettes of his favorite pop culture characters, from Mary Poppins to Darth Vader. They’re currently on display in an exhibition at Gallery 1988 in Melrose and will run through May 20th. Check out folks’ reactions at the opening night event.

Every Stan Lee Cameo In Marvel Comics Films

Peter created a compilation featuring every cameo made by Stan Lee in a Marvel Comics film up through 2008. He plans on updating it with Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.

Cars 2: Final Trailer Premiere

Disney•Pixar has released this new trailer from Cars 2.

Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on June 24, the sequel features the voices of Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Jason Isaacs, Joe Mantegna, Peter Jacobson, Thomas Kretschmann, Bonnie Hunt, Cheech Marin, Tony Shalhoub, Guido Quaroni, Lloyd Sherr, Paul Dooley, John Ratzenberger, Jenifer Lewis, Michael Wallis, Katherine Helmond, John Turturro, Franco Nero, Vanessa Redgrave, Eddie Izzard, Bruce Campbell, Michel Michelis, Jeff Gordon, Darrell Waltrip, Lewis Hamilton and David Hobbs.

In Cars 2, star racecar Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and the incomparable tow truck Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) take their friendship to exciting new places when they head overseas to compete in the first-ever World Grand Prix to determine the world’s fastest car. But the road to the championship is filled with plenty of potholes, detours and hilarious surprises when Mater gets caught up in an intriguing adventure of his own: international espionage. Torn between assisting Lightning McQueen in the high-profile race and towing the line in a top-secret spy mission, Mater’s action-packed journey leads him on an explosive chase through the streets of Japan and Europe, trailed by his friends and watched by the whole world.

NYC Subway Dining Car

On the first of May “a razor, a shiny knife” an educational, social and theatrical culinary experience hosted a “luncheon” on the L line of the New York City subway to unsuspecting passengers. Their goal was to serve a meal in a dynamic and strained location and to provide a challenge that could only be overcome through teamwork and partnership.

The menu contained caviar, foie gras, filet mignon and for dessert, a pyramid of chocolate panna cotta, dusted with gold leaf.

More about the experience can be read HERE.