Here’s what would happen if Superman and Batman got together for coffee to talk about the big trailer reveal of the past week.
No, it’s not Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Instead, Supes is excited about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and calls it the best trailer out there. Batman tries to get the Man of Steel to consider their own dual trailer to no avail.
Superhero banter, sarcasm, and some pretty funny lines ahead. You’ve been warned.
Disney’s has been showing us glimpses of its Brad Bird-helmed live action film for some time now, with the slow burn first trailer last October focusing on the young woman who gets a mysterious pin that transports her to an unseen, futuristic world, complete with jetpacks and glittering skylines.
That and present-day George Clooney, who convincingly portrays the curmudgeon next door with secrets of his own.
This new trailer, however, ratchets up the sci-fi action, giving us several more shots of the eponymous future city, even more jetpacks, and a team of future SWAT cops with ray guns coming after our heroine and Clooney as they climb into a bathtub and launch themselves into an uncertain, well, future.
Maybe Tomorrowland won’t be the sappy kid flick we all thought it would turn out to be, after all.
This week, Leander takes some time to try on the Apple Watch in-store, finding out whether the hottest smartwatch out there is worth your time or money, David heads into an Apple Store on Magnificent Mile in Chicago for a fitting and to get some customer reactions, plus a ton of news about this latest wearable tech that you’ll want to read from cover to cover. We’ve also got Stephen with some travel tips for you and your trusty MacBook, as well as Luke’s take on why you want to upgrade your iOS to 8.3 right away (hint, it’s not emojis). Rob also walks you through a couple of how-tos, including one way to make sure your iOS gaming sessions aren’t interrupted with a simple tweak to Do Not Disturb.
Make sure to head on out and download Cult of Mac Magazine to get your own “hands” on the great content we dose you with every week.
“The Force is strong in my family,” says Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker voices over this second teaser trailer for the hotly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie that will hit the big screen this coming December. “My father has it, I have it, my sister has it. You have that power, too.”
That’s how the nerdgasmic second trailer begins, and then slams into some seriously amazing scenes from the upcoming film, including a massive, crashed Star Destroyer, close ups of new stars Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, and Daisy Ridley, and a brilliant moment of fan service with everyone’s favorite smuggler and his humongous furry sidekick.
“Chewie,” says Han Solo, “We’re home.”
We’re living in a golden age for comic book movies, but even with that being the case, it can be kind of rare for a film to arrive in multiplexes, faithfully guided there by its original creator.
Having the original creator also show up as a writer or even director can work wonders, however, as this sextet of comic book cinematic gems prove.
You’re in the green room, waiting for your curtain call. You can hear the throngs of rabid fans in the audience, just waiting for you and your group of rock and roll rebels to take the stage.
You and your bandmates head out, winding through backstage. You flirt with a cute blonde production assistant; a bearded roadie hands you your favorite axe. You step out onto a massive stage in front of a crowd of thousands. You totally suck at playing the guitar. The crowd, fickle as ever, turns on you.
No, this isn’t that anxiety dream you’ve been having ever since you were a teenager, this is the new Guitar Hero, a new video game with a familiar name and a very different experience.
While we might all be waiting breathlessly for Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron this summer, there’s another big contender for tiny superhero dominance: Ant Man.
Starring Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, Ant Man will show up on the big screen this July. The new trailer below gives us the first glimpse of Rudd in his Ant Man suit, which gives the character superhuman strength, the ability to shrink to a miniscule size, and the ability to communicate and control ants.
It’s a pretty ridiculous set of powers, but, as Rudd says near the end of the trailer, “I know; it wasn’t my idea.”
The crazy machines are at it again, only this time it’s not what we’ve come to expect from the long-running Terminator franchise, now coming to theaters in July as Terminator: Genisys
In the first film, Arnold Schwarzenegger played the original bad-ass invincible robot from the future out to kill Sarah Connor, originally played by Linda Hamilton, and her son John. Subsequent movies with the governator messed with the formula a bit, bringing in the scary liquid metal terminators and placing the original metal skeleton monster into a savior role.
But none of the movies have gone this far in messing with our heads or the plotline.
Spoilers abound; consider yourself warned.
Helsinki-based developer Everywear Games surely had to rethink the way they pitch when they decided to make an Apple Watch game. Runeblade, the team’s casual fantasy-adventure made only for the Apple Watch, will launch onto Apple’s diminutive third screen later this month.
“The game is designed to be played in 5-15 second sessions and builds over time as you progress through the journey,” said CEO Aki Järvilehto in a statemnent. “We’re excited to help pioneer game development on Apple Watch with a fully original title designed specifically for smartwatch gaming.”
The team has released a trailer to tease the game, and it looks interesting, if a bit tiny. It is a game meant to be played on your wrist. With one hand.
For nerds of all stripe, this Sunday night will be an imploding black hole of greatness, with the Season 5 premiere of Game of Thrones, and, right after that, the Season 2 debut of our favorite tech-themed dramedy, Silicon Valley.
In the delightfully awkward trailer, you’ll see the boys rounding up their VC resources to compete with Google stand-in Hooli, who’s hot on the Pied Piper trail to get their algorithms for data compression to market first.
Get your Apple TV ready, because Sunday is all HBO.
Game of Thrones…is coming. The fifth season takes over your Apple TV this Sunday and we’re all pumped for the latest intrigue, dragons, and deeply menacing looks. Not to mention all the great naked people.
If you’ve missed the first four seasons of Game of Thrones, however, you have two choices.
You can binge watch all 40 hours of HBO’s take on George R.R. Martin’s blood and sex-fest, or you can catch up in two minutes, 49 seconds, with this absolutely hilarious recap from comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele.
This week, Lewis has the inside look at the best way to pre-order that Apple Watch, Buster and Luke have a ton of insight on the wristband based on early reviews, and there’s even more, like the straight dope on the new Macbook from Buster, top keyboard shortcuts for all Mac users from Rob, and a fascinating piece from David about custom action figures, including an armored whale that’s no fluke!
Check it all out in this action-packed–yet still free–April 10th issue of Cult of Mac Magazine!
The world has gone mad again, and Max is there to witness. We’ve got a whole new trailer for the Mad Max: Fury Road reboot, and it’s full of insane-looking characters, viciously modded cars and a simply deranged flaming electric guitar that shows up a little over halfway through the trailer.
“In this wasteland, I am the one who runs from both the living and the dead,” says (presumedly) Tom Hardy’s Mad Max in a voiceover. “A man reduced to a single instinct: survive.”
An extra bonus — besides a shaved-headed Charlize Theron looking like a totally sane badass — is that bizarre-looking long-haired dude with the Bane-like dentistry mask who seems to be glaring at everyone and everything in several of these short, action-packed scenes.
This week, Alex has a quick look inside Apple’s secret health lab, Leander has some of his own thoughts about the hot new Becoming Steve Jobs book, Luke has important info about how hackers are brute-forcing simple passwords, Rob gives you a quick how-to on marking all those unread iMessages as read, and David has a pretty neat story about Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty. Wild, fun, and all Cult of Mac — that’s what we have for you in this edition of Cult of Mac Magazine!
What happens when your daughter is infected by the zombie virus? You love her, and you want to save her.
Unfortunately, you’ll probably have to kill her.
Action-hero and California governor Schwarzenegger stars in the upcoming Maggie, a gritty, realistic, and very human portrait of the possible zombie apocalypse.
Face it, we’ve all imagined ourselves in the hot seat of a TIE fighter or X-wing at some point.
With this hot new fan-made anime, you can finally get your tour of a galaxy far, far away from the perspective of one of the Empire’s sweet Twin Ion Engine pilots. It’s a loving homage not only to the Star Wars franchise, but also to those rad anime shows of yesteryear, like Robotech and Speed Racer
Buckle in and check it out below. You’re gonna love it.
Imagine getting early access to videos from your favorite YouTube channels, like Good Mythical Morning or Smosh.
Now imagine paying for the privilege.
Vessel, from former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar and CTO Richard Tom, proposes you do just that: pay $2.99 per month to get your videos three days earlier than the rest of the internet.
You’re not alone if you think this is a tough sell to a market obsessed with getting things for free, but Hulu Plus (which offered shows seven days earlier for a fee) did pretty well with the model, becoming the fastest paid subscription service, according to Kilar.
The team has also made the first year of Vessel for free, so that will help.
Sure, it’s an Adam Sandler/Kevin James summer blockbuster with a ridiculous premise: the Earth is besieged by huge video game characters bent on destroying everything by turning stuff into pixels.
While Peter Dinklage and Jane Krakowski might elevate this potentially awful movie, Pixels, to something more cult status than forgettable popcorn fodder, it’s the nostalgic use of Pac-Man himself that made us watch the trailer in the first place.
First up, we’ve got the Mini Coopers all painted up to look like the iconic Pac-Man ghosts, Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde, which is all kinds of awesome. However, it’s the lovely tribute to Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani, portrayed by Denis Akiyama (Johnny Mnemonic, Dead Ringers) at about 1:52 in.
Do you remember the first time you saw one of these cool iPod & iTunes commercials? Surely you were impressed with the motion, the cool white earbuds and silhouetted dancers, and the hip soundtrack pulsing out from your TV. It was like nothing we’d ever seen before.
Ciat/Day’s iconic silhouette ads captured the cool of the iPod brand without trying to make us identify with any specific actor or band (at least at first). The iPod came out in 2001, but it wasn’t until 2004 that it had any kind of mass-market success, due to both the fact that iTunes went PC, and these ads.
You can now watch all 22 of these iconic ads in one long, 13 minute stretch, thanks to the Steve Jobs Documentary YouTube Channel.
Citizen George is slated to be a full-length independent film about a director who creates a hugely popular space opera film trilogy (read, George Lucas and Star Wars), only to end up releasing disappointing film prequels 20 years later.
So far, so basic, right? The catch here is that you have to choose the type of movie this fan film will end up being. Want a dramatic story about a serious film auteur and the perils of fame and fortune, like Citizen Kane? Drop some cash into the Drama tip jar. Want a wacky, time-travel comedy like Austin Powers? Slide your money into the Comedy tip jar.
The Black Eyed Peas’ co-founder apl.de.ap is at the top of his game in the music industry and a total Apple fan. He’s also just beginning to speak out about his journey from a young boy with a visual impairment to his current status as a star vocal coach on The Voice of The Philippines.
“I was born with my eye condition,” apl.de.ap, aka Allan Pineda, told Cult of Mac. “Today, I feel much less handicapped by my legal blindness as technology has helped me a lot…. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t extremely tough at times, and occasionally I still feel challenged by it.”
He lives and breathes by his MacBook Pro, thinks Siri is amazing and messes about with music apps on his phone. He shared with Cult of Mac the story of his early life, the visual problem known as nystagmus, and his reliance on and use of technology and Apple products, which he says have helped him get through “a lot of things that would otherwise leave me helpless.”
The internet is up in arms about the price of the higher-end Apple Watch models, with a grand level of snark and wit in the various Twitter rants and reaction pieces. The aggro response will most likely fade away, but if there were an equally large group of apologists, the resulting flame war might become a larger-than-life conflagration.
If you’ve ever wondered why some internet arguments go large, this video may have the answer. It turns out that the best way to get the attention of the internet is to get angry. Or, rather, angry reactions can almost guarantee the potential of an argument to go viral.
Get ready to watch the epic slow burn in the official trailer for the upcoming conclusion to Rocksteady’s Arkham video game series, Batman: Arkham Knight. Scarecrow is uniting all of Batman’s enemies — Penguin, Two-Face, the Riddler, Harley Quinn, Poison, Ivy, and the Arkham Knight — to take Gotham City and take down The Bat.
Sure, there’s a little bit of Bane-like incomprehensibility in the Scarecrow’s voice-over, and (barring a miracle) the Joker won’t be in town this time around, but this game is looking pretty amazing. The in-game shots of Batman plunging down the skyscrapers of Gotham City, the brutal combat animations, and the just plain high-resolution glory of the fictional city and it’s lone hero make us want to play Batman: Arkham Knight right now.
Check out the epic trailer for the June 2, 2015 game below.
Grumpy Cat, T-Shirt-guy, Leave Brittany alone! Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, Bill Gates. Music videos, TV episodes, vlogs, and — of course — PewDiePie.
That’s just a small sampling of the amazing video compilation edit you can see right now on YouTube, created by Luc Bergeron, director and video editor for YouTube, to celebrate ten years of the Google-owned video portal.
Take a look at this amazing edit of 198 YouTube videos below and be ready to thrill to all the video memes you already know, plus a ton you might have missed.
Can you imagine a time without the ubiquitous video service, available on every video device you have, from your iPhone and iPad to Mac to smart TV? YouTube has re-defined the way we create and consume video from the moment it came into being, and we love this retrospective for reminding us.
What happens to a bunch of weaponized high school kids recruited to fight intergalactic bad guys? They become some seriously disturbed adults.
That’s the message in this stylish, high-concept fan film that reboots the popular live-action television show for kids that first aired in the 1990s, Power Rangers.
This film by music video auteur Joseph Kahn, produced by Adi Shankar, stars Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar Galactica fame and James Van Der Beek (who also gets a writing credit) from Dawson’s Creek as two former Rangers on different sides of the long-running intergalactic war.
Check out the dark film below (NSFW warning: there are boobs and lots of violent scenes), and you’ll never think of this franchise in the same way again.
