The most recent installment of Flux's Cinema Tuesdays at Nike Sportswear’s cutting-edge concept space at the Montalban Theatre in Hollywood included a special advance screening of the acclaimed documentary from Lionsgate, "More Than A Game" (2008), profiling Lebron James and the fabled fab 5 of the best high school hoop squad of our generation. The More Than A Game Tour bussed in some of LA's finest young ballers including basketball ambassadors from Reseda, Taft, Compton, Dominguez, and Long Beach Poly, and many others taking part in a number of pre-screening festivities with Power 106 DJ's and emcees on the Montalban Rooftop, converted into a glorious basketball court, overlooking the heart of Hollywood high rises.
"More Than A Game" is more than just a basketball documentary, it's the brainchild and debut feature from Kristopher Belman, who developed the film's concept as the subject of a 10-minute film school project at Loyola Marymount University. Graduating a few years ahead of the film's subject players in the same hometown, Kristopher spent most of his final college years flying back and forth between Akron and LA to juggle the film and his studies. It took him 7 years to take the several hundred hours of intimate footage from the gyms, locker rooms, buses, hotels and homes of these highly publicized premature stars and find the right financiers who could help serve the story in which Kristopher had envisioned all along. Kris will be the first to tell you this is more than a film about Lebron James ; but about the team and their relationships to each other and their families and extended families on the basketball court.
Our friends over at Levi's (who to this day remain a go-to and creative Denim brand) and Cornerstone are putting together a wicked event at the Santa Monica Pier next Wed April 15th. For those of you who aren't aware of what "Powersliding" is, checkout this wacky video:
I never thought ping pong could be dope until I met our good buddy Adam Bobrow back in my college radio days at USC's KSCR. Every once in a while this funny dude would stop by our underground hip hop show and start busting freestyle raps in Yiddish, thus earning the MC name "Yid-One." It wasn't until a few years later that I could actually remember that he had a real name and this name was Adam Bobrow.
(Getting down with his "Balls of Fury" costar Christopher Walken. Adam was humble and made sure Walken got some screentime as well)
(I've never met another Ping Pong Pimp that looks quite like this, and I doubt you have either)
I love seeing artists step out of their usual channels and produce work in other categories. In this case, Nike (and a lot of their cash) got director David Fincher (soon to be Oscar buzzin' with his upcoming "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") to direct an ad entitled "Fate" for their Football line. The piece is not only directed by Fincher, but shot by one of my favorite Cinematographers, Emmanuel Lubezki (of "Children of Men" fame). To add one last bit of cinema-world goodness to this commercial, the music is a remixed version of a track from famed Spaghetti Western composer Ennio Morricone's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" score.
Exploring the creative connection between fashion and sports, this exhibition at London's Victoria & Albert Museum will delve deep into the "complexities and tensions" between these two industries.
One of the most glorious pieces of retro 80s video game history is back! At a press conference this morning, Nintendo announced a new version of the boxing classic "Punch-Out!" for the Wii. I'm usually weary of remakes, but this one looks like it's kept the best of the original, including main character "Little Mac" and villains including King Hippo. Along with Street Fighter IV, the next few months look like a rad time for some vintage gaming nostalgia. Checkout this teaser trailer... the best part is they stuck with the oh so classic music theme:
This past Saturday Nass, $tyles G and I checked out a really random but super fun event- get this... a Ping Pong Tournament (PT3) hosted by Puma over at the Zune L.A. space. The tournament has been an annual event in NY for a couple years now, but made it's first trip to LA. The tournament featured teams from all sorts of well known LA based groups including, KCRW, Flaunt Magazine, Undefeated, Paramount Pictures, Smashbox Studios, and Stones Throw Records (to name a few). Here are a few photos from the madness that was PT3 (for a whole lot more checkout Nass' full gallery, and the official PT3 gallery):
This ad from Adidas Europe is pretty badass- It features a vision of a what a future game of soccer might look like. The player is rocking a high tech uniform/suit of armor that is able to break down and rematerialize with the help of a little CGI. The whole thing is set to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (dropped down a key) which juxtaposes the flashy visuals nicely.
What the hell happened to summer?! Just like that it looks like the back to school ads are back hitting newspapers and the days are getting shorter. Oh well, at least for all you skiers and snowboarders out there it means that the season's on its way. While you're up in the mountains tearing up the slopes, it's important to look the part- Luckily for you, iDiom (Burton's high end brand) has just released a look at their Fall/Winter '08/'09 Collection. They've definitely got a green thing going on with these pieces, where it has to do with being eco friendly or not...
Didn't even mean to place the two pictures above next to each other, but they actually ended up making a dope ensemble. I'm loving the techie print on one side of this board that contrasts the earthy leaf print on the other side... really rad stuff iDiom/Burton has going on here.
After being inspired by V's shadowboxing post and the women's fast-walking event in Beijing last night, I wanted to share a sport that my buddy/boss referred to me during one of our usual you-tube lunch breaks. The sport of Korfball is played in more than forty countries, involving a team of four men and women shooting a smaller soccer-like ball into a net basket 3.5 meters high. Daring duels between attackers and defenders unfortunately can only happen between the same sex. Now that baseball seems to be on it's way out of the olympics, please join me in bringing Korfball back to it's rightful place in London in 2012.
FoundTrack Friend Howard Lee is basically your all around funny creative type dude. While he's dabbled in standup comedy, fashion, and other renaissance man type activities, his latest creation totally made me crack up. This video is a submission for MMA Fighter / UFC Champion B.J. Penn's website- For all you fashion fans, take note, Penn is sponsored by hip streetwear brand RVCA, and is one of their "RVCA Advocates."
RVCA x BJ Penn Signature Trunks
Keeping with the Olympics theme, Monkey and his friends above are the faces of the BBC's coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The promos and music were created by the guys behind the Gorillaz - Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, based on their stage play "Journey to the West", adapted from a classic Chinese folktale of the same name.
As we get pumped up for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, it's only natural for one to remember back in 1992 when we got to witness what is quite possibly the greatest men's basketball team ever assembled in the known universe. One team that included Jordan, Bird, and Magic coming out of retirement?! INSANE. Time will only tell how the 2008 Team USA Basketball crew does, but with the likes of Kobe, Lebron, and Carmello on one court, the odds are looking pretty decent to say the least.
You'd think that almost twenty years after the making of Back to the Future II, we would have flying cars, hovercraft skateboards, and Pizza Hut in 30 seconds or less. Well, last week we finally started to see our first hint of the 2015 BTTF we saw in '89 with the official release of the "Air McFly" Nike Hyperdunk, inspired by the shoes worn by Michael J. Fox in the Spielberg classic. Kobe Bryant attended the release at Santa Monica's Undefeated in a Delorean modeled after the film.
(Nike's 2008 "McFly" edition Hyperdunk)
