PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Woody's Roundup 7594

 

I have to admit picking up one of these sets for that new horse. He's so darn cute. I wound up building the set and it was pretty much fun. Woody's office and the jail make a nice little playset . Stinky Pete has a bit of a mine. There are lots of good parts in tan, dark and light blay, dark brown and reddish brown. There's plenty of tiles: 35 of the 1 x 4 & 10 of the 1 x 2 in dark brown, 2 of the new 2 x 4 tile in reddish brown and one of the same size in light blay. It uses a pair of the new window shutters in reddish brown for the swinging doors to the sheriff's office, the upper floor of which has some nice medium blue windows. I'm sure they will turn up in many mocs.

 
I like do like the figures. Woody and Jessie both have longer legs than your standard minifig leg and their shirts are great. Their hats are unfortunately glued to their heads which are much bigger than a regular minifig.

    

Science Fiction Sunday 64

I went over to Joe's to watch District 9 on BluRay on his 60 inch LCD last night. Sure looked nice. It's an entertaining movie told documentary style. We follow Wikus around as he heads a group of human bureaucrats who are evicting the aliens from their shanty town in Johannesburg. The human's want them out of the city and they have set up a nice concentration camp tent city 200 miles from Joberg. It's like a farm where you can run and play. The aliens came in 1982 when their ship stopped over the city. It's huge. It's still there twenty years later when the movie takes place. The aliens live in a slum guarded by the military. It sucks. The aliens have nothing to do and seem to be pretty primitive. Hardly anyone seems to know much about the aliens, derogatively nicknamed Prawns, who have not integrated into the society. During the eviction process Wikus finds an illegal lab and gets sprayed by some black alien liquid. Oh, oh! That can't be good. It isn't! Wikus grows an alien arm and his world tumbles away from him. He goes on the run and joins up with the alien science guy to get the black liquid back from the bureaucrats. The alien says he can use it to get to the mother ship and right the transformation. That sounds complicated, probably isn't going to go too well. There's lots of action and things get blowed up pretty often.

 

It was directed by Neill Blomkamp who also co-wrote the screenplay with Terri Tachel. Peter Jackson produced. It was adapted from Blomkamp's short film Alive in Joberg. You can see the short film at YouTube. If you haven't seen the feature length, here's the trailer. You can see the aliens have improved quite a bit. As I said I found it entertaining and well done. The story has a nice sense of humor and isn't one that I have seen too often.

 
Since I had more time today I watched a serial I had downloaded off of the Internet Archive site. I downloaded the MPEG2 version. Largish files totaling 7.3 gig when done. I also downloaded the player that IA recommends. The VLC player does a great job on all the formats they carry on the site. It's got variable playback speed which I found handy. It's free.

The Great Alaskan Mystery is only science fiction because it has a super powerful raygun in it. I watched it because it has Milburn Stone in it. I don't remember seeing him in any movies before. I do remember him playing Doc on Gunsmoke even though I haven't watched any of those shows in nearly 40 years. Irascible old coots are always memorable. I like serials for some reason and this sounded like it might be ok. It was ok, but not great. The cast is good, the story is familiar. It's got a bit of everything really, planes, icebergs, ship wrecks, Nazi spys, government agents, rayguns, horse riding, gun shooting, car chases, truck crashes, explosions, you name it. It entertained me while I was watching it and it was free. Some of the cliff hangers were poorly done. That would be my biggest complaint. It was nice seeing Milburn play the hero. Some pretty scenery too. There's are better serials posted to the Internet Archive, all public domain and free to watch or download. I'll let you know what else I find.

Friday Night Movie 257

Joe brought a copy of Battle of the Warriors and I have to admit I was curious. It's a 2006 Hong Kong film with Andy Lau as a peace lovin' chinese guy who comes to the city of Liang just as the Zhou are attacking the city. He says he's from the Mozi and he's here to help them. He rallies the citizens to fight for their city and is given complete charge of the military by the drunken king. Andy beats down a huge army at every turn, then the king turns on him when he becomes too popular. He escapes with the help of the king's son who is killed by friendly fire. Bummer, huh. The Zhou have regrouped. They invade and take over the city with the help of barrage ballons. Little one man things with fire dropping off them. I'd never seen a ballon invasion in a Chinese movie before. It was pretty cool. Most of the movie looks pretty darn good. There's the odd bit of CGI that doesn't look to good but that goes by quickly. Andy returns with the men who left when he did and they beat down the Zhou. The movie takes place about 370 BC during the Warring States Period. One warlord or another was invading some state or another all the time. They would all be crushed by Shang Yang about 221 BC and that would start the short lived Qin Dynasty. Chinese history sure is fun, sadly the movie is not so much fun. Greg thought it was depressing. Luckily it's not as despressing as some of the other Chinese movies I've seen. Hardly any children get killed in this one, and none of them gets eaten. There's a massive army. Some of them are CGI but many are real extras. There are some pretty impressive battles as the Zhou siege the walled city. Lots of slaughter and fightin' going on. The scenery is nice too look at and the sets are huge. It's 133 minutes and it seems to drag at times. The movie doesn't seem to be based on a real battle, what it is based on is a Japanese Manga. That's based on a Japanese novel which in turn was based on a history of the Warring States Period. It's no Red Cliff but it's still enjoyable enough. I'm glad I have seen it but won't bother to go out and pick one up.

Sperhauk picked up the Criterion DVD of Vampyr from the public library. I thought I had seen it not too long ago and sure enough I had gotten a copy off of Turner Classic Movies back in Oct 2006. I dug it out and took a look. It's not as nice a copy as the Criterion edition, which has much nicer subtitles, sound and picture. I also have an earlier copy that clocks in at 72 minutes; both the Criterion and the DVDR I have are 83 minutes. I have two notations in my watched movie list. One is in 2006 when I watched the more complete version and one for 11/1/02 when we watched it at Friday Night Movies. I had completely forgotten. It was the second feature of the evening after Eight Legged Freaks.

Vampyr is a 1932 German film about a guy who looks remarkably like HP Lovecraft. He arrives in a small town outside of Paris that has some problems with a female vampyr. He gets a room at an inn. It's filled with weird people and strange happenings. A man is shot and killed. HP recieves a book on vampyr's that supplies the clues needed to defeat the bitey old bag and save the pretty young gal who had been the vampyr's victim. The movie is based on a Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu story called Camilla. That story also influenced Bram Stoker when he wrote Dracula some 25 years later. Vampyr is sort of interesting in it's historical setting but I'm not a big fan. It's ok. It's vaguely creepy and there are some whacky images to look at. Not something I would figure I need to go out and buy. Especially since I already have two copies.

Army Men On Patrol 7595

 

I picked up a second copy of this set when I was at the LEGO store the other day. It was hard to resist, especially after talking to Mark about all the nice green parts. Mark works at the store and he's recently started to come to TwinLUG meetings. Though mostly a castle builder he recently built a nice skyscrapper for Micropolis.

 

Besides all the nice green parts used to make up the jeep you get nice minifig uniforms to make up your own army. There's even a medic in every box. The shade of green might be a bit bright but it gets the job done. Some of the accessories look odd in green, like the rifle, but most of them are welcome. The LEGO Imagination Center has a limit of 5 sets per customer but I'm thinkin' that's mostly to stop Bricklink store guys from buying all the sets in the LIC in one shot. It's hard to keep the sets on the shelves there. Another part I think might have some potential is the base the guys stand on. It's about 4 by 2 and thinking about Micropolis I can imagine it might be used for a bit of a raise in the ground level. Lotta potential. Now I'm potentially late for work so I gotta go.

Mythical Creatures by MisaQa

 
As a sucker for a good dragon I was drawn again to MisaQa's green dragon. He looks great. What a face. He's part of a group from MisaQa'a 2008 Advent Calendar. She's just posting them on Flickr today. Well worth a look. Here's a couple more.

 
 

Speak Softly and Carry a Crapload of Guns... by Titolian

  

I thought this was pretty much fun. Did you spot the Indy Whips? You can catch Titolian's Flickr stream here.

Science Fiction Sunday 63

A while back I saw somewhere that the 1958 UK series H. G. Well's The Invisible Man was coming out on dvd. I was sort of interested. I remember seeing the series when I was a kid, and enjoying it. All the Brit shows turned up on Canadian TV. I wondered if the series was any good, it's been so long since I've seen it. Then I forgot about them, until this weekend. They turned up on the Internet Archive. They don't look too bad. The dvd's might be better but they also cost nearly 40 bucks on Amazon. Worth a quick look, you can stream them or download them in several formats. There is much more available video and audio on the site.

I have been watching some of the first season. The series has a science guy, Peter Brady, turning invisible in the first show. The authorities lock him up. He escapes and a guy he turns to for help sells him out. It turns out ok and the authorites think they should leave Peter to get back to work on finding a cure for invisibility. Next episode he becomes an invisible spy and helps a guy out of a jam in some Middle Eastern country with a made up name. One case after another follows, all wrapped up in the 26 minute running time.

Peter often has help from his widowed sister. They live in a nice big house with the sister's nine year old daughter, who's also my favorite character. She wants to be invisible too. Who wouldn't. The invisibility effects are fair to middling, pretty typical for the time. There are the usual cars driving with empty driver's seats, smoldering cigarette's floating in the air, headless overcoats out and about, doors opening and closing on their own, all that good stuff. You often see the scene from Peter Brady's point of view, which must be a great cost saver. There's even an occasional bit of humor. The producer of the series was Ralph Smart. He'd already produced some tv and would go on to produce Danger Man the following year. That would be a better series. Someday I need to cycle through those babies again.

Temple by ArzLan

  
I haven't taken time to mention anyone else's stuff of late. Here's a nice Temple by ArzLan. I found it on Flickr this morning. Very nice. You can see more pictures here. I like the column's that hold up the statue's and be sure to keep an eye out for the monkeys.

Friday Night Movies 256

Legend of Seven Monks is a 2006 movie also known as Master of Thunder: Kessen!! Fuuma ryuuko-den. Wow, quite the title. It's got Sonny Chiba on the cover of the dvd, but he doesn't appear until about the last quarter of the movie when he rides in to help save the day. In 1970 some demon tries to open the gate of hell and a couple of young monks stop him. Sonny plays one of the monks when he's old and another veteran Japanese movie star, Yasuaki Kurata, plays the other. In the 1970 battle Sonny's sister is killed and he leaves the order. The story switches to modern day and the demon guy is back. He hasn't aged a bit and he's still ugly. He wants to open the gate to hell. Let all his pals out. Yasuaki is now the head monk and he can't have that. He sends his gang of monks off to do the sealing ritual. It's needs a recharging once in a while. The demon's sidekick beats all the monks senseless. Oh, no! We need some more monks. Who will do the job? I know! Teens. The young woman Ayumi, Yasuaki's guardian and cook, goes out and collects the teen descendents of the original monks. They all have some single super power. There's an odd black guy tossed in the mix. He acts with abandon, playing the character as a cross between Buckwheat and Dolemite. Oh, ebony comic relief machine thy name is slapstick. Ayumi convinces them to fight the demons and after a bit of a rocky start the 7 heros pull together a bit more and get their asses kicked. Sonny, secretly the grandfather of Ayumi, shows up to help at this point. He tips the scale and the demons are vanquished but at a high price. The movie was fairly entertaining though there aren't enough good fights. There's a fair bit of comedy mixed in with some action and heavy dose of melodrama. The girls are cute. There isn't any over powering reason to see this movie, there are certainly better genre movies, but it's ok. I probably won't pick one up now that I have seen it but I'm not sorry to have passed the time in it's company. It was nice to see Sonny (66) and Yasuaki (60) working in martial arts movies at their age. I certainly couldn't. And the girls were cute.

 
Pandorum takes place on a space ship with hardly any cute girls. It's huge, meant for carrying a bunch of frozen people to a new world, trying to save humanity from the dying overcrowded earth of 2170. When Ben Foster wakes up to take his 2 year turn on the flight deck he discovers something has gone wrong. The power is nearly out and the reactor isn't doing to well. He wakes up Dennis Quaid. Both of them seem to have some memory loss due to the time spent in suspended animation. Ben says he does remember the way to restart the reactor. He needs to get there but the door out is locked and they can't open it. He crawls into the ceiling, with Dennis guiding him, and gets out into the main part of the ship. There he encounters a dead guy, a filthy gal and some murderous mutant cannibals. What's goin' on? The cannibalistic mutants weren't supposed to be awake until they land. I'm only partially kidding. There's an explaination at one point that indicates that the mutants were genetically engineered humans who have adapted themselves to live on the ship rather than the planet they were supposed to inhabit. There's lots of running about as the mutants chase Ben about the ship. He collects some information and a few humans on the trip. After he starts the reactor there are some more interesting reveals near the end of the movie. I enjoyed the movie. I would watch it again. The characters are good and well acted. The story is a bit complicated and not all the information comes in an easy to gather format. The movie seems to be hated by critics and liked by fans. It scores a 28% at Rotten Tomatoes and 7.0 on the IMDb. Paul W. S. Anderson, of the Resident Evil series and director of Event Horizon is the producer of Pandorum, a movie that is frequently compared to EH. Other than people trapped on a ship the movies aren't similar at all. Event Horizon is a great haunted house movie in space. Pandorum is more like The Descent which has mutant cannibalistic guys running about in an underground cave system, eating spelunkers. I understand they taste good, marinated in their own sweat, the meat tenderized with fear. Different tastes, huh. I like chicken. And that's why I wouldn't go on any of those off world adventures. You just can't trust people not to change when you aren't looking. No one likes it when Mr. Johnson from cabin 7B214 eats them, except Mr. Johnson.

What I Read In November 2009

A sad month for books, one of the reasons that I didn't make it to 100 books in 2009. I wonder what I was doing?

 
J. K. Rowling - A Biography by Connie Ann Kirk is one of the batch of Harry Potter related books that I picked up at Half Price Books when I had a coupon. It was around 5 bucks. That beats the 39 dollar price on Amazon right now. With a 2003 copyright date the material is a bit dated, especially regarding any discussion of the series. I like the cover. Mostly for the hardcore fan.

     
Red Ryder and the Adventure at Chimney Rock by H. C. Thomas is one of those Whitman kids books. This one is from 1946. It's before they switched to those glossy full color covers bound to the book. I have the version without the dustjacket. I got it for 2 bucks at HPB. I do like that dustjacket though. I could buy one on ebay for $17.50 as I write this but I'll just have to be happy with the picture. The story is simple, some lady tenderfoot arrives in the west. She's followed by a creep she didn't marry out east. Red helps her when the creep turns violent. There are the usual western activities you'd expect in a western novel like ridin' and fightin', and there's some gun shootin' but no one gets killed. I stuck it in my keep pile for now.

  

The Eye of the Worlock by P. W. Catanese is the second of his books that I've read. I enjoyed the first which was based on Jack and the Beanstalk. This book is based on Hansel and Gretel. It's set many years after the fairy tale and our hero Rudi meets a very old Hansel. Rudi is living in the house that Hansel lived in when he was young. Back when the legend was born. Rudi lives there with his two younger sisters, his uncle and the uncle's awful wife. The girls are kidnapped and Rudi and Hansel go after them. There's a pretty evil, and rather unattractive, warlock who wants the treasure Hansel and Gretel stole from the witch. He's got some evil plans in mind and there's some powerful magic in that treasure. There's also danger and magic and castles and creepy forests and troll like critters. It's a fun well written book. I kept it and will read it again.

The Riddle Of The Gnome by P. W. Catanese has some Rumpelstiltskin action. Tom is forced to live a lonely life on a tiny island. His dad comes by and leaves him some food. He can't get close to the boy, who was cursed in the womb, anyone who gets close to him has the worst luck. Destruction and death follow in Tom's wake. The kid meets a gnome and the adventure is on. Can you guess that gnome's name? There's plenty of story with invading hoards of dirty greasy barbarians, giant stinging insects, murderous robbers and a monster so ugly the slightest glimpse of it's face is enough to kill you dead. The story is fast paced and there's always something new on the next page. I'd recommend this series anyday. There are two more Further Tales of Adventure that I am keeping my eye out for, as well as a trilogy I haven't seen yet.

  
Ralph S. Mouse by Beverly Cleary is the third and final book in The Mouse and the Motorcycle trilogy. Ralph, fed up with the life at the Inn, talks Ryan, the son of the new maid, into taking him to school. Ralph plans to live there. It doesn't go so well and a bully breaks Ralph's motorcycle. Eventurally Ralph heads back to the Inn with a new sports car. Not the best of the series. I didn't keep it, but then I haven't kept many of Beverly's books either.

Small Steps by Louis Sachar is a follow up novel to his previous award winner Holes. I had seen the movie Holes and throughly enjoyed it. I read the book after seeing the film and it was very entertaining. There's a mystical tall tale element in Holes that is sadly missing in this new book. It has a couple of the characters that were at camp with Stanley Yelnats, but Stanley does not appear in the book. This book is about Armpit and X-Ray. Sixteen year old Armpit is working for a landscaper in his home town of Austin, Texas. His pal X-Ray gets the idea to scalp tickets to some popular young singer's upcoming show. X-Ray is a fool at best, and the kind of guy that gets you into trouble, why anyone would hang out with that kind of guy beats me. I'd rather be alone, I got some shit to do. X-Ray's scheme does get Armpit to the show and he does meet the young singer. They have a bit of a romance. That turns bad as the young singer's dad tries to kill her and frame Armpit for the crime. I liked the part of the story about Armpit and his 10-year-old neighbor with cerebral palsy. That's rather touching. I wasn't to down with the whole kid thriller thing, it's just something I'm lacking interest in, so I put it in the sell pile. I'll never re-read it, though it isn't a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, just not for me. Go read Holes if you haven't, or read it again if you have. Holes is an exceptional book that won the 1999 Newberry Medal, and it's well worth the read.