Category: Movies

More Of The Same

Yeah yeah, so I like trading cards. Old ones. Very old ones. Like these:

20140701-200331-72211678.jpg

These cards came out in 1990 with the film. I paid $0.25 for this pack (and every other pack seen here today) at a local con a few weeks back. I don’t remember much about this film, but I do remember my brother saying “Woah that was tubular!” after we saw it so he must have loved it! Share the memories:

20140701-200705-72425951.jpg

As a movie card set from that era it of course contained a piece of gum, which I had to try:

20140701-200739-72459926.jpg

Let’s just say it hadn’t aged well 🙂

The next cards are from 1991:

20140701-200828-72508858.jpg

Even thought BBC America plays this movie at least twice a day, and even though I’ve seen it many many times and even thought I know the lyrics for the Bryan Adams theme song by heart I’m going to pretend I know nothing at all about this film except what I’ve learned from the cards in this pack which means it must have been some sort of Christian Slater vehicle:

20140701-200951-72591114.jpg

Let’s move on a couple of years to a beloved sequel:

20140701-201024-72624133.jpg

Ah, the beloved Free Willy 2. Who can forget how moved we were when we saw this masterpiece of cellulose? As Bernard frequently says “Would have been the best film of ’95 if it wasn’t for Johnny Mnemonic!” But what about the card set?

20140701-201347-72827259.jpg

Rubbish! Dreadful! Even at $0.05/card I feel ripped off. I pity the suckers who bought these 19 years ago for full price 🙂

And then we get to an unlikely card set: Young Indiana Jones trading cards (from 1993). The only comment I’ll make about the bulk of the cards in the pack I opened was that they would have been more useful had they been printed on tissue and therefore usable as toilet paper. However…the pack included this gem:

20140701-201613-72973390.jpg

Yes my friends, 3D! See for yourself by squinting at this clever stereoscope I assembled using forbidden technology:

20140701-201654-73014758.jpg

Lots of trash in this post so far, but as I often do I saved the best for last. So here we go:

20140701-201740-73060371.jpg

Omg! Even now I can remember my brothers words as we exited the cinema back in ’83! He said “Those scenes of Richard Pryor using the computer were so cool! I’m going to become a programmer.” And thus the legend was born. Again, share some memories:

20140701-202232-73352661.jpg

Some of those cards are just iconic now. Look at the sticker in the bottom right!! Surely that’s the best sticker ever made???

And what of the gum in this pack, which had matured for no less than 31 years. Is there anyone with nerves of steel enough to eat it?

20140701-202338-73418835.jpg

Let’s just say it was hard to keep it on my tongue for the one second it took to take the photo 🙂

A Life In Lists #1: Movies

For the almost-eight-years of this blog I have resisted the hallmark of lazy websites everywhere: a list.

But to celebrate my upcoming Geburtstag and to drive up page views and therefore advertising dollars, I am going to break my self imposed rule and – goddammit! – go on a list bender! Not just any list, but themed lists: 42 entries, for the (very soon) 42 years of my life.

Given the academy awards are soon upon us, what better way to start this endeavour than my own ‘awards’ so to speak. So here we are, list number one…

My favourite films of the last 42 years

1972 – Fist Of Fury
1973 – Enter The Dragon
1974 – Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla

picnic_at_hanging_rock_ver1_xlg

1975 – Picnic At Hanging Rock
1976 – The Man Who Fell To Earth
1977 – Star Wars
1978 – Superman
1979 – Mad Max
1980 – The Empire Strikes Back

175738_Excalibur400

1981 – Excalibur
1982 – The Dark Crystal
1983 – Return Of The Jedi
1984 – Indiana Jones and The Temple Of Doom
1985 – A View To A Kill
1986 – Labyrinth
1987 – Superman IV: The Quest For Peace
1988 – The Lair Of The White Worm

LastCrusadePoster

1989 – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
1990 – Total Recall
1991 – Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1992 – Unforgiven
1993 – Faraway, So Close!   (The last film I saw before leaving Australia)
1994 – The Lion King
1995 – Sense and Sensibility
1996 – The God Of Cookery
1997 – Starship Troopers
1998 – Velvet Goldmine   (Best musical ever!)
1999 – Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace
2000 – Gladiator

lord_of_the_rings_the_fellowship_of_the_ring_poster_5667

2001 – The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
2002 – The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
2003 – The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of The King
2004 – Shaolin Soccer
2005 – Kung Fu Hustle   (My favourite film of all time)
2006 – V for Vendetta
2007 – Dragon Wars
2008 – Hancock

crank-2

2009 – Crank: High Voltage
2010 – Scott Pilgrim vs The World
2011 – Thor
2012 – The Avengers
2013 – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
2014 – Journey To The West

Years were chosen based on the US release dates.

The hardest years to single out only one film were 1982 (due to Raiders of The Lost Ark and Tron) and 1986 (due to Aliens and Blue Velvet) and 2012 (due to Hobbit). I also had conflicting feelings about last year…

Journey To The West won’t be released for a few weeks yet in the US, and even then probably only in a very few theatres. But I watched it twice on the plane, and I can hardly believe I’ll see a better film this year 🙂

Can you spot…
1) The years with no ‘the best’ movies so I chose ‘the worst’?   😉
2) The film on the above list that I haven’t actually seen (yet)?

So, what do you think of the list? Leave your critique in the comments!

How Did My Resolution Go?

Last year I made a post detailing what I felt was an enormous amount of books, games and DVDs on my ‘list’ that I felt I really needed to get through. It became a resolution or sorts, to shrink all lists in 2013. How did I go?

Books

manual-of-the-planes_48

I made great progress in this category, reading the majority of the approximately 50 volumes that were sitting on my shelf this time last year. The only one I haven’t yet found time for is In The Wake Of The Sea Serpents, the 800+ page magnus-opus by Heuvelmans. In addition to those I had this time last year, I purchased and read many new books during the year, mostly manga and fantasy novels. I try and read every single night before sleep at the least.

However – and to my delight since I love books – I have to admit my ‘to read’ list is hardly smaller than it was last year, replenished as it was by a large variety of other books. Heuvelmans tome is now accompanied by 3 other cryptozoology books, and they share a shelf with about 20 novels (mostly fantasy), a handful of manga (not much I am interested in is released nowadays), and a half-dozen or so RPG manuals such as the one pictured above. Add to this a couple of Doctor Who books, an art book or two and four books on video-game and pinball history and I should have enough to keep me busy well into 2014!

Movies & TV

81uFCd4pfUL._SL1500_

As with my books, I made great progress on the DVD ‘watch list’ of February 2013. Ultraseven, Lexx, Claymore – all the box sets have been watched. In fact almost every single item we owned last year has been watched months ago, and many more have now filled their place.

In fact, the ‘watch list’ as of today is actually longer than it was last year. Two items alone: the Inspector Morse DVD box set and the Monkey DVD set sum to over 100 hours! Add to these several other anime DVD sets (Spice & Wolf, Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai!), another Japanese sci-fi set (Ultra-Q) and about a dozen assorted DVD movies (almost all sci-fi/fantasy) and we’ve got our watching cut out for us.

Games

008

As with the other two categories, I made bold strides into my piles of unplayed games. As of today I have:

– 8 unplayed PSP games, only one of which was actually purchased in 2013
– 8 unopened 3DS games, most of which are less than 6 months old
– only 1 unopened Wii U game (Pikmin 3, which I may start playing today!)
– 2 unopened PS3 games (both of which I owned last February as well…)

As you may recall from the blog post a month ago, I purchased much less games in 2013 than I usually do, which allowed me to play a lot more games I already owned. I expect during this next year to ‘finish’ the PSP games as well as possible the PS3. Since I currently have no plans to obtain a PS4, I imagine this section of the list will be much reduced this time next year.

Last time I looked at the piles of unopened/unread/unwatched media and thought “Why do I even buy more stuff?!”. Now I look at the smaller piles and think “I’m looking forward to opening that!”.

In other words, I think my resolution was a success 🙂