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As a fan of the original Japanese animation film of the same name, I am pretty stoked to see that Hollywood is making a live-action version of The Ghost in the Shell (despite the obvious whitewashing of its characters).

While the movie appeals to me on a personal level, now I have a good “professional” excuse to see the film when it screens, thanks to Honda. This is because Scarlett Johansson’s character, “The Major” (again, more whitewashing), will be riding a modified Honda NM4 motorcycle around New Port City.

Yes, Honda’s strange creation – which itself is sometimes referred to as “the Akira bike” or “Batcycle” – seems perfect for a life on the big screen. It might be the first product placement for a motorcycle that actually makes sense to us.

If there is a piece of Japanese animation that has transcended from the niche realm of anime into the larger consciousness of mainstream film, that piece surely has to be the movie Akira.

And while the dystopian themes of a future that is still recovering from the fallout of WWIII predominate the film, it is surprising to see how many fans have latched onto the motorcycle the main character, Kaneda, rides in the story.

I wasn’t even a motorcycle enthusiast when I first watched Akira, but Kaneda’s bike always struck me profoundly. Judging from the number of people who have tried to re-create the motorcycle in the flesh, I am not alone on this – even Kanye West has given the movie a nod.

Our friends at MotoFire luckily found this short tribute trailer from filmmakers Brad Kremer and Dean Fowler, who like us, also have a fascination with the Kaneda bike, and have re-made the iconic movie’s trailer to focus on this piece of machinery.

Fans of the original movie will find the imagery familiar, and for those who are getting their first taste of Akira, we hope the trailer intrigues you further.

Barry Sheene is one of grand prix racing’s greatest riders, and perhaps one of its most intriguing characters. The two-time World Champion comes from a era when motorcycle racers were as unapologetic as the machines they rode, and Sheene exemplified both those those facts to the maximum.

Perhaps the original playboy of grand prix racing, Sheene eventually married Penthouse model Stephanie McLean – you’ve likely seen the set of iconic photos with her in Sheene’s unzipped leathers.

A heavy smoker, a big drinker, and a constant partier, Sheene represents a forgotten time in motorcycle racing where polished personalities weren’t the norm, and the personality of racers weren’t whitewashed by PR firms.

Why are we telling you all this? Because the epic story of Barry Sheene is finally coming to the silver screen, thanks to IO Films Australia and Deep Spring Pictures UK. It looks like it’s still early days for the crew, but the trailer is waiting for you after the jump.

MotoGP fans should recognize the name Mark Neale, as he has produced some of the sport’s most popular movies, such as Faster, The Doctor, The Tornado and The Kentucky Kid, the sequel Fastest, and now Hitting the Apex.

Continuing the timeline of Neale’s films, Hitting the Apex chronicles six riders: Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa, Casey Stoner, Marco Simoncelli, and Marc Marquez.

The movie picks-up just as Valentino Rossi is making his way from Yamaha to Ducati, carries us into the start of the 2015 season, and touches on the major events of those seasons. Neale as always provides a good balance between making MotoGP appealing to non-enthusiasts, while keeping plenty on the table for avid fans.

We’ll do a full review closer to the movie’s debut, but we think that fans and soon-to-be-fans will enjoy the two-hour film. We certainly did.

After the jump is the trailer for Hitting the Apex, and you will note it is narrated by Brad Pitt, who Neale tells us was instrumental behind-the-scenes in getting the movie released.

It’s not our cup of tea, but we can see how hardcore cinephiles can get easily worked up about behind the scenes photos of movies that are still in production — it’s likely not too dissimilar from how we feel when we catch a glimpse of an upcoming motorcycle before its release. It’s not our thing, but we can understand it.

What is a lot easier to understand though is when an actual motorcycle gets caught by these Hollywood spy cameras, as is the case here. On the set of the next Avengers movie, the eagles eyes of the linkbaity Daily Mail caught photos of what is clearly an electric Harley-Davidson motorcycle — piquing our interest, of course.

Back in May of last year, we brought you the trailer for the Korean movie Quick (allegedly set to be released under the name Fast in the United States). Other than featuring a BMW S1000RR, we had no idea what was going on in the original trailer, though we certainly were intrigued. Thankfully, an updated trailer has been released that actually unfurls the plot line a little bit more for us, and we can get an idea about what the Quick, Fast, but not Fastest, movie thing is about.

Already out in South Korea and Japan, Quick will debut in Singapore next week on February 2nd, however there is no date for the US market premiere at this time (sad trombone). Could a foreign film supplant such masterpieces as Biker Boyz and Torque as the definitive motorcycle action movie of our time? We don’t know, and only time will tell. Can someone send us a copy of this though? Thanks for the tip Rick!

I just got the box office and donation results in from our screening of Fastest last Thursday night, and I’m very happy to report that we raised $1,500 for Riders for Health that evening. Hosted in conjunction with the San Francisco Dainese Store (thanks D-Store Crew!), we had a packed house of over 250 MotoGP fanatics for the SF premiere of the sequel to Faster. Director Mark Neale even drove up from Los Angeles, and signed posters, DVDs, and t-shirts, in addition to participating in the Q&A after the screening.

Those in attendance had a chance to win a signed Randy Mamola illustration by Rich Lee Draws, a Marco Simoncelli Photo Tribute by Scott Jones Photography, and a signed Valentino Rossi VR|46 hat, among other items. A big “thank you” to everyone that came out to watch Fastest with us, and for helping raise so much money for one of motorcycling’s great charities. Hopefully we can do it again soon (more on that to come).

Photo: Glen Coddington

We hope you bought your tickets to the San Francisco premiere of Fastest, Mark Neale’s latest MotoGP documentary, because our screening, co-sponsered by the San Francisco Dainese Store, has sold out. If you happen to fall into the group of GP junkies who haven’t purchased tickets to the SF Fastest screening, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve left 20 or so tickets waiting for you at the box office, but you’ll have to pick them up in person, and by pick them up, we mean walk/ride/swim to the Embarcadero Center Cinema right now.

For those of you who already purchased your tickets, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve got a fun evening planned for you. Director Mark Neale will be on-hand to do a Q&A about making Fastest, and we’ve got some nice items to raffle off to attendees, with all proceeds going to Asphalt & Rubber‘s favorite charity: Riders for Health. The official charity of MotoGP, Riders for Health is an international non-profit organization that provides motorcycles (and rider safety and maintenance) to healthcare workers in Africa.

Asphalt & Rubber has teamed up with the San Francisco D-Store to bring you Mark Neale’s Fastest, the long-awaited sequel to the hit MotoGP documentary Faster that features Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Ben Spies, Colin Edwards, and Marco Simoncelli. The San Francisco Bay Area premiere of Fastest, our screening will be held at 7pm on Thursday, December 8th at the Embarcadero Center Cinema in downtown San Francisco.

Tickets will be available online or at the box office for $10.50, though we recommend purchasing your tickets ASAP, as we anticipate to sell out the movie well before the event date. All proceeds will go to A&R‘s favorite charity: Riders for Health. The official charity of MotoGP, Riders for Health is an international non-profit organization that provides motorcycles (and rider safety and maintenance) to healthcare workers in Africa. We hope to see you there.

For Christopher Nolan’s last installment of his Batman trilogy: The Dark Knight Rises, Hollywood hottie Anne Hathaway will don the leather bodysuit (no word yet on the leather whip) of Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman. Exactly where in Catwoman’s tumultuous relationship with Batman will Hathaway’s character stem from is uncertain, but it looks like her feminine wiles managed to get her Batman’s motorcycle, the Batpod. Filming is currently going on in Pittsburgh, and confirmed from this photo, Pennsylvania is a no-helmet state. If this feels like a shameless attempt to get photos of Anne Hathaway dressed in leather on the pages of Asphalt & Rubber, then you’d be right.

Source: Top Gear

Before one starts a review on the new TT3D: Closer to the Edge movie, one should note the film’s underlying purpose. Funded by the Isle of Man government, the hour and a half long movie is designed to promote the Isle of Man as a tourist destination, to promote the controversial fortnight-long TT racing event in a favorable light, and to cultivate potentially new fans of the TT by providing a primer to this year’s racing action. Part documentary, part advertising, there is accordingly an agenda with this film.

Now with that caveat of information brought to light and understood, I can go on to say that TT3D: Closer to the Edge is an enjoyably great film that makes you range the gamut of emotions as it follows John McGuinness, Ian Hutchinson, and Guy Martin through the 2010 Isle of Man TT. Though the use of 3D filming is gimmicky at best, the short version of this review is that this is a movie that will end up on my DVD shelf as soon as it becomes available.