remember to blink

Following on from the incredible Sultan’s Elephant that roamed the streets of London in 2006, the hype is beginning to build for La Machine, an event due to take place across Liverpool 5th-7th September.

Although the event is being shrouded in secrecy (apparently it will feature a mechanical creature 20 feet taller than the Sultan’s Elephant), information is starting to trickle through via the official website, and via the media coverage the event is receiving. The main parade will apparently be on Saturday 6th September, starting at the waterfront and travelling across town, before the event reaches its climax at William Brown Street on Sunday 7th September.

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It’s apparently been in development for a couple of years now - presumably since Zach Snyder’s 300 made Greek warriors cool again - but Warner Bros have now given the greenlight to a remake of the 1981 classic, Clash of the Titans. And according to a script review by IESB.net, 300 is a definite reference point; “This Titan’s Clash is closer to Zach Snyder’s 300 than to The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. It’s written with a solid R rating in mind with nudity, sex and lots of gore-rific ugly deaths by really bad ass ugly monsters”.

Special Effects legend Ray Harryhausen, the man behind the effects in the 1981 original, has been pretty scathing about the idea of a remake, commenting that the original stop motion effects had a nightmarish quality that you don’t get with CGI. That may be true, but what would Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy have looked like without the genius of WETA Digital? A stop motion Gollum?? I don’t think so. Personally, I’m really looking forward to seeing what they do with this, and I remain hopeful that we might one day see the Sinbad franchise brought back to life on the big screen.

Liverpool based design studio Uniform have managed to capture a live Superlambanana, which is currently grazing in Arthouse Square in central Liverpool. You can see footage of the creature above, and can also keep up to date on its progress here. It’s due to be released back into the wild in a few weeks’ time.

Anyone who’s ever come across the fabulous LocoRoco on PSP will no doubt experience more than a hint of déjà vu when they see Rolando, due for iPhone and iPod Touch this summer. And although it obviously borrows heavily from LocoRoco, to the point where I suspect Sony Computer Entertainment’s notoriously litigious legal department are preparing papers as we speak, that’s not a bad thing in my eyes. LocoRoco is the nearest thing the PSP has to a ‘killer app’, so here’s to hoping that Rolando will be just as good