Dreamscape

I watched this 80's thriller last night and was totally fooled by the Drew Struzan cover art. Man is his work brilliant.

Check it out below:

 

Looks like a pretty cool, movie, like Indiana Jones, or Goonies. But alas, it was not. This next cover art I found better represents the movie:

This dvd cover is more what the movie looked like. Why they switched from the awesome Drew Struzan art to this is beyond me. But the 90's was strange, it was a transition period from all things that were awesome in the 80's to well... the crap we have now, he he. I imagine they were just trying to not look 80's in the dvd release, that or someone just finished an intro to Photoshop tutorial and thought they could handle it.

Anyway, the movie was ok, I'm not going to review it, but a quick synopsis:
"A government funded project looks into using psychics to enter people's dreams, with some mechanical help. When a subject dies in his sleep from a heart attack Alex Gardner becomes suspicious that another of the psychics is killing people in the dreams somehow and that is causing them to die in real life. He must find a way to stop the abuse of the power to enter dreams."

Not many memorable scenes, but there was one where a dream world resembled a Tim Burton movie and had a pretty cool twisty stair case. Also keep a watch out for the wicked electronic synthesizer soundtrack and...

SNAKE MAN!!!!!! ha ha, brilliant.

Check it out if you care.


Oh, and I think this post has inspired me to create a new feature on Unpunched dealing with movie poster artists. You'll have to stay tuned for that.

ET Thursday

Its ET Thursday, a day where we bring a little glowing touch of ET to your day.

Today's installment brings you a clip from the 30th Anniversary celebration in Los Angeles. A group of people took the opportunity to show their love of ET by riding their bikes through the streets of LA in red hoodies (we called them "bunny hugs" not hoodies where I come from back in the day). They followed up their ride with a free public viewing of ET.
What strikes me about this video is, well... it looks kinda boring. Maybe they could have spiced it up with a little music to their video.

eBay Oddities

eBay oddities is still a thing?  Yeah, it's still a thing, settle down.
(Its just not forced weekly now.)

Anyway, found these little gems on eBay the other day and thought I'd share:

I hope you like some hurrs with your derps because these bad boys are packin'.
I can just imagine the theme song now: "Heros of the world... fighter..." no I actually can't.

Memory Monday: KRULL

It's been a while since the last Memory Monday, not because I had no memories, but because I had ET on the mind I guess.
So After my ET and Reese's Pieces hangover from this week, I dug into the 80's memories and pulled out this beauty from 1983:

KRULL!!!

This movie was not all that great, it opened at #4 behind Lampoons, Jaws 3-D and the 10th week of Return of the Jedi, but I have great memories from it. It also has picked up a small cult following. It also had a catchy musical score.

The story follows a prince set out to rescue his bride from some slow moving invaders, called Slayers, from another world.

The princess is held by their leader, a  giant Beast, at the Black Fortress.

The movie is a mix between medieval and sci-fi, like Robin Hood meets Star Wars. No lightsabers but the prince has an awesome weapon that I thought was absolutely awesome.

  "the Glaive"

This was the best thing ever I thought. He'd throw it and it would kill what ever it hit, then it would come back to him and he'd catch it, SWEET!! I tried to make one of these out of Popsicle sticks, tons of fun.

There are a few cool characters like the Cyclops.

It also had this weird blind wizard guy that scared the crap out of me back in the day, still creeps me out.

But the best little surprise was the re-discovering that this fellow was in the film.

Yes, that's Liam Neeson. As a kid I had no idea who he was, now we know him as Oscar Schindler, and maybe a few other roles he has done since.

I had always wished that Krull spawned an action figure line, it never did.
Maybe it would look like this:

It did inspire a comic and video game but not much else.

So if you want see a movie that captures what studios were trying to do in the early 80's Star Wars era to try and keep up, and you don't mind bad 80's special effects, then take a look at Krull.

ET Thursday

Hey its ET Thursday again. Today we'll look at the 20th Anniversary release of ET and Elliot ToysR'Us exclusive.

I didn't collect these when they came out 10 years ago, I wasn't collecting ET that much back then, and I really thought these were horrible figures and decided to wait until better ones were made, which ended up being 10 years later.

 

The only reason I bought this one is because I didn't have any ET related items with Elliot on them. Maybe one day I'll open it but not today. It's not a bad sculpt of Elliot, looks like him more from the side.

 It's got a great display of the 20th anniversary items on the back
 

Here you have a progression of the ET's through the years. First the 0 anniversary ET on the left. Next is the 20th, notice the slightly cartoonish sculpting, I picked this one up at a garage sale for a couple bucks. And of course the sweet 30th anniversary version.

Thinking with Portals

I bought something at the local comic convention the other day.
* Most vintage/nostalgia collectors won't give two hoots about it (Malcolm :P) but I think its pretty dern awesome. 

My very own Portal device:

A quick video I slapped together to show off how it works:


When I first played portal I was instantly engrossed in the story, the characters and the setting of the game. Not only was the game weird and new, but it was immensely entertaining and funny.

I (much like any person who played it at the time) couldn't recommend it enough. It was good. Portal 2 came out last April and I was a little worried that it might ruin the experience of the first game. I was relieved that it somehow surpassed it in almost every which way.

If your not good at games, but like puzzles and humor then Portal is for you. Go play it. Its cheap. (Wait for a steam sale and you can download it for like 10 bucks.)

Happy 30th E.T.!

Wow, we just celebrated the 35 Anniversary of Star Wars and now we get to celebrate having ET around for 30 years. Holy crap, do I feel old! Even though E.T. first aired to the public at the Cannes festival on May 26, after which it received a 15min long standing ovation, today is its official release date.
I clearly remember going to see ET, not knowing what this little guys was, or what the story was all about. It was a wonderful time. And I still can't get enough, I don't know what it is.

I'm pleased that ET is coming out on bluray this year, even if I have to wait til October, maybe they will bump it up. I'm also thrilled that the version on bluray will be the original theatrical release. Here's a trailer.

AWESOME!!

Last year, Jeremy and I took a road trip to California and brought our families along. I HAD to stop and see the ET house. I had been to California many times before but never took the time to take a look at this piece of Hollywood history.

So here I am, nerding it up outside the ET house, in my Jaws shirt (yes, I was thoroughly enjoying my time in LA LA Land). Don't ask why I was lurking behind the garbage can, I guess I was trying to be discreet, ha, mission accomplished. It was a nice neighborhood, and had really grown in the last 30 years. In the movie there was hardly a big tree in sight, now the trees make the house seem a lot smaller than it did in the movie. That was a pretty cool experience, I'm glad I did it.


Over the last few months I've been showing off some strange and awesome ET Collectibles.
This next one I would have to say is one of my favorites. It's not vintage, it was from the 20th anniversary, but it is awesome.

Behold the Toys R Us Exclusive E.T. The Extra Terrestrial Limited Edition 12" Figurine. I really like this piece, it has great show quality. The sculpt is not as dead on as NECA's recent figure (those are awesome) but it catches ET in large scale fairly good, which I haven't seen a lot of.

And it's numbered, to boot.

And that's not all, check out this clip.

That's right, it lights up and plays music and dialog from the movie.
We had this on the shelf at work and it was a running gag to press the button during an awkward silence and have to listen to the whole show over again.

Here is it with the cover on

Here it is in the dark

Here you can see it fit into my ET shrine of awesomeness.

Next ET Thursday's post will feature a not so great item from the 20th anniversary collection, but is was a must buy for me. I'll explain on Thursday.

Time to go watch ET, and I suggest everybody reading this does the same today.

Wreck-It Ralph

Malcolm and I visited the D23 expo last year and Disney had a little booth dedicated to a weird retro video game movie called "Wreck-It Ralph". I don't remember thinking too much about it, simply because it didn't really get what the movie was supposed to be about.

Well Disney released the Official trailer the other day, so do yourself a favour and watch it:

I haven't been this excited about a Dsney movie in a long time. I think whoever is heading up this project is really smart for tapping into a fan base that Hollywood has yet to understand. I mean seeing Bowser, M.Bison, Kano, and Dr EggMan in a support group together should be a ticket purchase right there!

ET Thursday Trifecta!

Today is a special ET Thursday, for no real good reason. I just have 3 things to share today that all.

First up is the new ET Headnocker by NECA. Now, I'm not a real big fan of bobble heads and I wasn't overly crazy about this one either, but it is a new ET item, and we don't see those too often.

 
Check out the sculpt job, good caricature of ET's head. But lets examine the body.

Holy smokes, they just recycled the body from the awesome ET action figure, and did a horrible job of hiding the seams on the shoulders.

At least they included the Speak and Spell and Reese's Pieces, even though they aren't labeled as such
Overall I'm happy with it, it looks good on my shelf (which one day very soon I'll post a picture of).


Next up is a vintage ET metal tray I picked up when I was hunting for Star Wars items, at which I found the Hulk Hogan Puppet Kooler (see yesterday's post), featuring Gertie giving ET a little goodbye smooch.

Not much to say about this, everybody knows about these, whats great is that I now have a set of trays to display, and even better it only cost me $5.

Finally, we have the announcement of ET on Bluray, AWESOME!!!!! There will be no special edition, just the original release, guns, kids and all. Only bad thing is it isn't being released until October, lame. I assume to cash in on the holiday season.

Stay tuned, June 11 is a big day for ET fans.

Ebay Oddities follow up BROTHER!!!

Well, what a cool little story we have for you today. A while back Jeremy posted an Ebay oddity on the Hulk Hogan Puppet Kooler. I have an update on that story.

A couple days ago, I was checking out a collector's Star Wars merchandise he had for sale. While rummaging in his basement, what do you think I see?Yes!! There it is!!! A Hulk Hogan Puppet Kooler. There was no way I was leaving without that. One quick offer and $5 later I had this bad boy in my possession.

 

Pretty sweet! It came with the straps I just tucked them into the cup for display.

And look!! Hogan even signed it!!! What a find (ha).

Nice sculpt job on the face, great caricature.

Come little brother, you can do it! Move your legs, that's it! You will walk again, dude!!!

As an added bonus to this story, the husband of the lady that sculpted these puppet koolers, his name is Kenny, found Jeremy's original post on this item and left a couple comments. You all should check out what he had to say, it is very interesting. Maybe he'll send in some pictures of other koolers for us to see, who knows. Anyway it was great to read those comments, thanks Kenny. Check them out, here's the link again.

Why eBaying in Canada sucks:

Random Toy Post

WHOOOO lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Check out these cool items I picked up at the pet store. Wha? Yes the pet store, in the isle that has the fish rocks and aquarium logs and such.

Awesome little SpongeBob and Squidward houses. These are pretty cool, nice detailing too. Actually my daughter bought the pineapple and I couldn't resist getting the tiki head to complete the set. I guess these aren't really toys but I figure some of the figures releases today are like small statues and not really toys as well.

SpongeBob was waaayyy past my time as a kid, but my kids love it and I'm sure I would have too if it came out back then.

Looks like Boss Hogg is looking for those dang ol' Duke boys again, or maybe he can't find his hat.

(sorry I didn't have a little SpongeBob to put in the scene)