The kid who plays shirt-challenged werewolf Jacob in Twilight — a.k.a. Taylor Lautner — has signed on to play Max Steel in a Max Steel movie. Max Steel, in case you’ve forgotten, was one of those CG cartoons of the early ’00s that everyone forgot ever existed, like the Hot Wheels one. Apparently it’s been pretty popular in other countries, at least popular enough that someone’s bothering to make a Max Steel movie — can any of TR‘s foreign readers confirm this? And also, can someone knit this kid a shirt? Christ. (Via Geeks of Doom)
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.