PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Nickel Baseplates

 

Every LEGO collector has a story about scoring some sets at a nice markdown. I have some but I haven't had any good ones for a while. Today I went to WalMart and scored a bunch of these $30 games for a ten spot each or about 66% off. I hadn't picked up either of these. The piece count is rather low for the list price and I'm not really interested in them as games. People have said some of them are fun. I just don't know but getting$180 worth of sets for 60 bucks was too good to pass up. That's just over a nickel per part for either set and six of those parts are 32x32 baseplates. The minotaur walks a green path and Ramses is sportin' a nice tan. The green baseplates are sold seperately, for $4.99, but the tan ones are only available in this game or the Grand Emporium. They were also in three sets from the late 90's. You can get them on BrickLink where they start about 6 bucks a piece. I can always use baseplates so you can see the good sense of picking these up.

      

3841 Minotaurus has 211 pieces and 12 of the small minifigs. Thre are three each of those guys above. They are smaller in person but they have some nice detail. I don't have many of these sort of figures, just a few from the Harry Potter game. Unfortunately the Minotaurus set has too many lime green parts which is why I only got the one. I left the other sitting there. Maybe I can trade away the lime green someday. There are some green bricks and a few other bits and pieces and not much else to mention. Even at ten bucks I can't get too excited about this set, especially as a parts pack.

 

3843 Ramses Pyramid has 217 pieces and 13 minifigs. That's King Ramses over on the left and above we have 4 adventurers and a mummy. Since I have 5 of these sets I now have 40 of the mummy figures, not including the 5 Kings. I am wondering what I can do with them. In general this set has better parts, especially for me. I was attracted to the 39 tan bricks, 29 black tiles, 20 1x1 reddish brown tiles, 33 dark tan pieces, and a good assortment of odds and ends. Still not something I would have bought at the list price but perfect at that nice markdown.

The Rocker yields Strange Fruit

 

I saw The Rocker listed on On Demand and noticed it had Rainn Wilson in the cast. I often like him, though I don't watch The Office. Here he plays a drummer who's band ran away from him and became famous. Twenty years later he's in a dead end job. His nephew plays in a garage band who needs a drummer and Rainn steps in to beat those skins. The band gets some success and things go bad for a while only to end on a good note. A nice little movie that didn't do well when it was released in 2008. Worth a quick look but maybe not a purchase, at least for me. I already have a copy from On Demand. It made me think of a better rock'n'roll movie that I hadn't seen for a while and I watched that too.

Still Crazy is a 1998 movie about getting the 1970's band Strange Fruit back together. The guys had decided to call it quits, for a lot of reasons, and the 1977 Wisbeck Rock Festival is to be their last show. Lightning strikes the stage as they start and it's all over.  Billy Connolly, the bands old roadie, narrates the opening scene at the concert, then we jump twenty years to the present day. Stephen Rea, the kyboardist, is approached by someone to get the band back together for the curent Wisbeck Festival. He gets help from Juliet Aubrey, who worked for the band in the 70's. She will come back if she can be the manager. They start collecting the band: Bill Nighy, the lead singer; Jimmy Nail, the bassist, Timothy Spall, the drummer; they all join up. No one knows where the lead guitarist Bruce Robinson is so they hire a young guy who can play. The band struggles in practice and on the mini tour. After some tough but funny set backs they start pulling together and finally play the Festival. Lightning doesn't strike and things might be good for the lads. Billy Connelly's voice over wonders:  'And how will the Fruits conspire to bollocks things up this time? We wait with baited breath...' It's was a total delight the first time and I've enjoyed it several times since. The story is solid and entertaining. The actors are all great, especially Bill Nighy and Billy Connolly. If you haven't seen it, and you like the rock'n'roll, it's well worth a look. 

High And Low and The Bad Sleep Well

I watched a couple of things that had been sitting around for ages. High and Low is a 1963 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa. The literal translation of the Japanese title is Heaven and Hell and it's a theme in the movie. Toshiro Mifuni is a well off business man who's right on the verge of taking over the shoe company when his kid is kidnapped by a guy from the slums lower down the hill. The 30 million yen the kidnapper wants will screw up the deal and he'll be ruined. Turns out the kidnapper wasn't very good at his job and he got the chauffeur's son instead. The cops come rolling in and the chase is on. The money is collected, packed and delivered. The kid gets returned and the police hunt for the bad guy. The police procedural part of the movie is pretty good and Mifuni is great as the proud but damaged businessman. He's tossed out of the company and his debts are piling up. The police follow one clue after another and find some dead junkies. That leads them to the kidnapper and it's just a matter of time before he's nicked. It's rather long, 143 minutes, but it moves along pretty well most of the time. It's a good crime drama with some nice shots of Fujisawa Japan.

The Bad Sleep Well is a melodrama with Toshiro Mifuni as the son of a dead ruined man bound for revenge. He changes his name and sets up a new identity. He works his way into the life of the evil business guy and marries his crippled daughter. His revenge plan doesn't quite go his way, he falls in love with his wife, and then he's murdered in the last part of the movie. The evil guys daughter and son find out he had Toshiro killed and they tell him they are no longer his children. It's one of those sad downer kind of films people seem to like. I'm not such a big fan of them. I would rather see that evil business guy's head on a pole outside his office but that's me. It's a pretty good movie just not one I need to see too often. There are more entertaining Kurosawa films to watch.

Science Fiction Sunday 149

I couldn't bring myself to watch the Star Wars Prequels so I watched What Planet Are You From? It's Garry Shandling playing an alien who's come to earth to get a woman pregnant. It's the first step in world domination. Unfortunately the people on his planet are all male clones and their naughty bits have shrivelled up. Since there are no gals there they devise lessons on relationships, and after tests, they send Garry along to get the job done. He needs a fake wiener to take care of business, it hums when it operates, and boy, he's on the job with all the ladies he meets. Having a noise in your pants nearly gets Garry caught by the authorities but it all works out well in the end. Some people didn't like the penis jokes that much, but believe me, I've seen a lot of wang related humor and these are funnier than most dong jokes. The script by Garry and 3 other guys is pretty entertaining, but really, it's a dating and relationship movie before it's a science fiction film. Not that I mind. For some reason it didn't do too well when it was released. Its' gotten some good comments on the IMDb and Amazon since. Garry's got a great bunch of co-stars: Annette Bening is the love interest, John Goodman is the FAA agent who discovers Garry is an alien, Ben Kingsley is the leader of Garry's planet, and Greg Kinnear is the sleazy guy at Garry's work. Several other great actors show up in small to medium parts: Janeane Garafalo, Stacey Travis, Judy Greer, Richard Jenkins, plus many more. I liked the movie but I'm a big Garry fan. I enjoyed both his sitcoms, It's Garry Shandling's Show and The Larry Sanders Show, quite a bit. I think a lot of people would like this movie.

Here's a more science fictiony type movie. X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes is a 1963 Roger Corman film starring Ray Milland. Ray's a doctor who wants to see more. He invents a drug that lets him see more. When he gave it to a monkey it sees something and dies. Ray can't wait to see that and against all common sense he doses himself. His drug works and he can see through paper. He takes more of the drug and he can see through clothes and walls before too long. The enhanced vision lets him see too much and his mental health decays. He kills his friend in a fit and runs away. He joins a circus as a mentalist. Don turns in a good preformance as a shady circus barker who befriends Ray. His vision gets worse and he can see through reality and things get all blinky lights and weirdness. Ray gets worse and worse and after a car chase winds up in a religious revival tent. The priest says if your eyes offend you pluck them out. Ray's pretty entertaining as the mad scientist and the movie is fairly well written. It might move a bit quickly from one story point to another but it's a short film, 79 minutes, and there isn't much wasted material. I've seen it several times and it's one of the better Roger Corman films. It gets a 6.8 on the IMDb so it's got some fans out there. You can get a nice dvd with a commentary by Corman. He forgets to talk once in a while but he's pretty entertaining to listen to the rest of the time.

Friday Night Movies 341

 

The Adjustment Bureau was up first. It's a 2011 film by screenwriter, and first time director, George Nolfi. It's based on a Philip K Dick short story called Adjustment Team. Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and Terrance Stamp star in this romantic science fiction thriller. Matt's a young congressman who's running for senate. He looses when his bare ass appears in the papers. Emily is a gal he meets, falls for, and then discovers he's not meant to be with. Apparently there are some people in control of our lives and they tell him it's not in the plan for Emily and him to be together. He's not buyin' that and he bucks the plan. There's a lot of yakkin' and some runnin' about. Hats are worn, tears are shed, doors are opened. There are a lot of cool places and great New York City scenery. Much less stressful than actually going there. Worth a look.

 

Joe picked up the BluRay of The Lost Bladesman. It's not been released here in the USA yet but you can get it from all sorts of sources out on the internet, including Amazon. Donnie Yen stars as General Guan Yu. That's Donnie on the poster there with his giant sword on a stick. The red rock is also General Guan Yu though I have a feeling he wasn't that wide. I've only seen this character in the John Woo Red Cliff movie and Bruce Campbell's My Name Is Bruce. In the latter the General is an evil spirit and Bruce has got to save the town. It's pretty silly but TLB sure isn't. The story is based on part of the 15th century Chinese novel Romance Of The Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. You can download a nicely illustrated version here and read the annotated version here.

General Guan's head is delivered to General Cao Cao at the beginning of the movie and Cao Cao's memory takes us back to a time 20 years ago when Guan served him briefly. Cao Cao is the man behind the weak Han Dynasty Emperor. Guan was a general for Liu Bei when we was captured by Cao Cao. Bei had started as a simple man and through time and circumstances came to be a great warlord. He was the founding Emperor of the state of Shu Han. He was one of several warlords Cao Cao wanted to corral and get under the Emperor's rule. It goes badly for everyone and lots and lots of people die. Chinese history is filled with battles and slaughter of one sort or another. The movie is rather slow at times with breaks for some action. I still enjoyed it but wouldn't recommend it to everyone. Reading up on the period might make the movie more interesting. There's lots of info to be had on-line and that period of Chinese history is pretty interesting.

Micropolis - The Oasis

 

I had an idea to make a Neo-Egpytian style building. This was a style that was more common in the first half of the last centruy. I made this and called it The Oasis. There's the middle below. You can see some more pictures over at Flickr.

 

Radio, Radio

I was looking for something else over at YouTube and I found some versions of Elvis Costello's Radio, Radio. Here's one from 2003 that has a nice comment from a fan about the Elvis appearance on Saturday Night Live. They start one song, stop and bust into Radio, Radio. The guy commenting said it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen. I certainly saw it and thought the same thing. Elvis got banned from the show for 12 years but by then I had long since finished watching that show. I bought the first 5 years of SNL on dvd when they turned up at Target so cheap. The Elvis Radio, Radio appearance is in there and it was fun to watch all over again. Here's a version from 1982. I'm not liking the organ in this version as much. Here's a version from Detroit in 1978. I wonder if anyone I know saw that show? Here's one from 1979. Here's Elvis breaking in on The Beastie Boys to do Radio, Radio back in 2002. Here's a nice version of Everyday I Write The Book, just for a change of pace. What's So Funny About Peace Love And Understanding? I quit following Elvis's career ages ago but still enjoy many of his songs from the 1970's and 1980's.

2856134 Ninjago Card Shrine

I was havin' one of those days at work where you need to get the fuck out of Dodge or go all doolally. I usually stop in the LEGO store during lunch on one of the early days in the week and that's exactly where I headed. It's comforting and I get a brisk two block walk to the store from the parking lot. I try not to go 2-3 times a week but it's been known to happen. I didn't really need anything and really nothing was jumping off the shelf. Until I got to this Ninjago polybag set. It looked pretty and it was just the sort of thing to take my mind off whatever it was I was thinking about. 96 pieces for $6.99. That's a nice price per piece and the thing looks nice when you build it. What could be better. It holds a card but that could be changed out with some nicer picture. I wasn't impressed with the wiggle picture. It moves the stick he's holding behind his back up and down. It doesn't work that well and doesn't look that good when it does.

 

The rest of the thing looks pretty nice. That's the cover to the instructions. Pretty. I built the set at work and showed it around to some co-workers, none of whom are much interested in LEGO, and they liked it. I'll keep it intact for a while and probably will save it for rebuilding. None of the parts are ones that I need that badly or right now. It's just kind of pretty. I need to go find a better picture to display.

30052 AAT - Mini

 

I picked one of these up before the TwinLUG meeting and built it there. I like it. It's cute. Once I get tired of it I will take it apart and sort out the pieces. There's a lot of good tan, in both flavors, and you know how much I like the tan. There are some small plates, a 1x2 tile, 6 1x2 tan jumpers and 6 of the tan cheese slopes. 46 parts for $3.99 at Target.

What I Read In July 2011

July was a bit better than June. Five books is still not a good month for the reading. I blame Mary Hoffman. She just slowed my ass right down, like she was an anchor.

 

Stravaganza - City Of Stars by Mary Hoffman has some more jumping between modern day London and Italy of 400 years ago. Not our Italy but one in another dimension; one where magic exists and horses have wings. There's a bunch of new characters but that isn't enough to please me. The reading is slow and the book heavy in my hand. Maybe you'd like them better than I, who knows. I managed to get through it by skimming more in the last half. When I've had a book in my hands for a couple of weeks that's not doing anyone any good.

El Borak And Other Desert Adventures by Robert E Howard actually took me more than a couple of weeks to read. It sat on my bedstand and I didn't get to it everyday. It's a complete collection of the El Borak stories which are set in and around Afganistan in the 1920's. There's lots of adventuring and slaughter. There are a few other desert adventures set in a similar area. Most of the stories are somple adventure stories but there is the occasional supernatural element. Not all the stories are complete and some were published decades after Howard's death. Still, a pretty interesting collection and one worth the read, though not for everyone. You can read a lot of Howard stories at Project Guttenberg Australia including those El Borak stories.

  

No Place For Magic by ED Baker is the 4th book int he series. I had read the 5th just recently and a month later I found the other two I was waiting for. Emma and Eadric are going to get married but his parents aren't too pleased to have a witch marrying into the family. They are pretty anti-magic in Eadric's kingdom. Of course that's where the happy couple head and there they find all sorts of trouble. There's some of the same humor that I liked in the other books, lots of fun characters, and trolls. Emma saves the day and gets her prince.

The Dragon Princess by ED Baker is the 6th book in the series and some time has past. Emma and Eadric have a young daughter who's got the power to change into a dragon, not always at her request. When she gets mad, watch out! Lots of new characters.  There are a couple of new books in the series that follow this but Ihaven't seen them turn up in the places I hang out. Baker has a couple of non series books but I haven' got those either. I like the series and will keep an eye out for the others. So far they have been entertaining and fun to read.

The Black Book Of Secrets by FE Higgins was something I got on clearance and it looked interesting. I started reading and read it all the way through in a day. Ludlow Fitch is tried of his life as a pickpocket in the big dirty city. His parents beat him if he doesn't cough up his earnings to fuel their booze habit. Ludlow hitches a ride and winds up in a small town where he gets a job as the assistant in Joe Zabbidou's pawn shop. Joe's just arrived in town and he's got a secret. He's a secret pawnbroker who collects stories in his black book. People come to him with their tales and he writes them down and pays them a bit of money. Ludlow becomes the scribe of these tales. Good and bad things happen and the book ends unresolved. There's a second book in the series that runs parallel to the first book and I see online that there are two more after that. I have the second book and after finishing this one I jumped right on that one. I will look for the other two. It was probably the best thing I read this month and that's no secret.