Archive for the movies Category

17 Things I’ve learned about life from watching movies and TV

Posted in hollywood life lessons, humor, movies, pop culture, TV shows with tags , , , , on March 4, 2010 by Paxton

1000-tvs1

My wife and I watch a lot of movies and TV shows. We love the s**t out of them. We try to see a movie at least every weekend and we have multiple shows we watch during the week. It’s hectic keeping up with that.

However, having watched all of these movies and TV shows, we have come to take away many deep and thoughtful life lessons. Things you can’t learn by living life, but by watching hours and hours of Hollywood entertainment.

So here are 17 things we’ve learned while watching all of these TV and movies.

Davy Jones
You will always have need of a celebrity (for a charity performance or prom) at the exact time that celebrity is in town for a concert or filming a movie/TV appearance. If you need to get in to see them, it’s very easy to sneak past or distract their security people because they are always completely ineffective. The celebrity will never get pissed that their security people suck and everyone keeps sneaking in to their hotel room.

Monica's Apt
Large, studio apartments (with or without wacky roommate[s]) are affordable even for the most meager of budgets. As are furnishings from Potterybarn or Crate and Barrel. College kids and people right out of college have immaculate decorating sense.

Jolie Wanted
If you are being held at gunpoint, start running away just as the shooter starts shooting and tip over a table/couch/chair to hide behind. The bullets won’t be able to hit you. Odds are the shooter is a terrible shot anyway, and will hit EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE ROOM except for you. If you do get hit, don’t worry, bullet wounds apparently don’t hurt very much as no one cries out or whimpers with a bullet in them. You mainly shrug it off and wait for someone to bandage you up (heavy, stuttered breathing and sweating may be the only symptom that you have been shot). You may also have a sudden urge to tell your partner to “go on without you”, even with a non-fatal bullet to the shoulder.

Dirty_Harry
When you walk into a room and see the person you are trying to capture or shoot, call out their name or yell ‘Hey!’ or ‘Stop!’ first to give them a sporting chance to run. The element of surprise is overrated…and unfair.

Mr Miyagi
If you are being bullied at school, seek out the friendly, ethnic janitor or find your apartment building’s gardener or handyman. All of these eccentric, foreign, older men were actually master martial artists back in their homeland and gave up the fame and glory of being badass tournament fighters to live the dream of being a janitor/handyman here in America.

Defeat
You can defeat a master martial artist who has been studying for his entire life if you spend a few weeks/months learning to fight from the aforementioned janitor or handyman.

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The 6 Rarest and Most Collectible Vintage Star Wars figures

Posted in movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags , , , on February 19, 2010 by Paxton

Yesterday I discussed how Hasbro is resurrecting the Rocket Firing Boba Fett figure this year. That figure has become a “Holy Grail” for many Star Wars collectors. There are many different figures that have become popular and collectible for whatever reason in the vintage Kenner figure line.  Many become popular because of an error made in production, some become popular because they were released at the very end so only limited numbers exist today.

Let’s take a look at the six of the rarest and most collectible vintage Star Wars figures ever made.  All of the figures in this list were officially released to retail and aren’t prototypes or mockups.  They are actual figures.

Blue Snaggletooth Sears Cantina Adv Set
Blue Snaggletooth – Released in 1978 as part of the Sears exclusive Star Wars Cantina Adventure Set. Blue Snaggletooth was supposed to be half as tall and in a red-suit.  The mistake happened due to a miscommunication by Lucasfilm.  Essentially, Lucasfilm sent over a black and white headshot of the alien and Kenner “made up” the blue suit and his height because they had nothing to compare to. This was later corrected which only created demand for the incorrect tall, blue figure (as these things tend to do).  Blue Snaggletooth has become legendary in Star Wars collecting circles.  It’s not as rare as one might think, but they aren’t exactly plentiful and the popularity of this variation keeps the demand high.

Vinyl Cape Jawa Cloth Jawa
Vinyl-cape Jawa – Of the original 12 vintage Kenner Star Wars figures in 1978, the very last one issued to retail was the Jawa. He first appeared as you see him on the left, wearing a plastic (vinyl) cape. As the line of Star Wars figures proved to be hugely popular, Kenner switched the Jawa to a cloth cape (on right) because it made the figure look better.  By doing this, it created a situation in which the vinyl cape Jawa is now an extremely rare collectible.  This one is not as well known as the Blue Snaggletooth to people outside the Star Wars collecting community, but Star Wars collectors know the specifics of this VERY well.  Vinyl cape Jawa is one of the most faked vintage figures of all time due to it’s high price on the secondary market.  All you have to do is take a vintage Obi-Wan, remove the cloak, cut it to size then place it on a Jawa.  If you are good enough (and have zero scruples), you can affix the figure to a used Star Wars 12 back card and you have something that may get you thousands of dollars from a collector that doesn’t know any better.  However, someone willing to pay thousands for this figure variation WILL know better.

DT Luke DT Ben DT Darth Vader
Double Telescoping Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader – “Double telescoping” is a term used for the original mechanics of the lightsaber action feature on Luke Skywalker, Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader.  If you look at the above pics, you can see the lightsaber opens up into two parts.  One part comes directly out of the hand and the second part comes out of the very tip.  This was done as a cheap way to give the lightsaber some length.  However, Kenner was not happy with this and changed the mechanics to a single piece of plastic.  Not many of these “double telescoping” figures actually made it to retail, which makes them doubly rare.

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Brand New Rocket Firing Boba Fett and other Star Wars Toy Fair announcements

Posted in Boba Fett, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, Star Wars with tags , , , , on February 18, 2010 by Paxton

ESB Boba Fett Toy Fair Hasbro

Well, Toy Fair in New York was this past weekend. There were tons of toy reveals going on for all types of toys and games, but one piece of news actually has me giddy as a schoolgirl at a Jonas Brothers concert.

Hasbro announced that for The Empire Strikes Back’s 30th anniversary this year, they are bringing the Vintage Original Trilogy Collection back.  Hasbro started the Vintage Original Trilogy Collection (OTC) back in 2004 (see pics here).  It consisted of mostly movie based figures in “vintage style” packaging reminiscent of the Kenner figures in the early 1980s.  The vintage packaging for these new figures looks fantastic but the best news about this vintage set is that if you buy five figures, you can send away for a rocket firing Boba Fett!!

rocket firing fett offer

Why is this fantastic news? Well, for those that don’t know, back in the day, right before Empire Strikes Back came out (pre-1980), Star Wars figures had a mail away offer for an exclusive Boba Fett with a rocket firing backpack. It was a way for Kenner to promote the new movie before it was released.  Here’s an advertisement showcasing this mail away toy offer (via my Flickr buddy Jason Liebig):

Rocket firing Boba promo

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Cavalcade of Awesome looks at the 2009 Oscar Nominations

Posted in Academy Awards, movies, Oscars with tags , , , on February 3, 2010 by Paxton

Oscars Wild!

The Academy Awards are almost upon us. This year the Oscars will be broadcast on Sun, March 7 at 8pm EST. The ceremony will be co-hosted by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.

The Oscar nominations for this year were released on Tuesday, Feb 2.  I do this every year, I go through the nominations for the biggest categories and see how much I agree with the Academy. More often than not, I don’t agree at all.

See my thoughts on last year’s Oscar nominations here.

See the Oscar noms for 2007 here.

You can see all the nominations on the official Oscar website.  So, without further ado, here are the nominations.

BEST PICTURE
Avatar – I can see this in Visual Effects, but not Best Picture. It’s a good movie, it’s just not a great movie.  And by that I mean it’s not the best written movie in the world and it’s AT LEAST 30 minutes too long. The mineral the corporation is mining in the movie is called Unobtainium. They actually say it in the movie. COME ON!
The Blind Side – Think about this: The Blind Side has a shot at being the BEST PICTURE OF 2009. Don’t get me wrong, I like this movie, but BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR?! No.
District 9 – On my list of top 5 movies of 2009. Of course, there’s no way in Hell this is going to win, but it’s good to see it here.
An Education – Yeah, didn’t see it.  Nor have I heard of it.  Well, played, Academy.  Well.  Played.
The Hurt Locker – I don’t normally like war movies. I hear great things about this, so I may have to suck it up and give it a watch.
Inglourious Basterds – An exception to my war movie rule. In my top 5 movies of 2009.
Precious – I see why this is nominated.  I really do.  I just never want to watch it.
A Serious Man – The Coen’s are weird, dude.  I’ve only enjoyed 3 of their movies.  EVER.  And I’ve only watched one of those three movies more than once.  I’m not exactly itching to see this.
Up – I really did enjoy this movie, but, again, I’m not sure it deserved a BEST PICTURE OF 2009 nomination.
Up In The Air – I love George Clooney.  I knew this was going to be high on Academy voters’ lists.  And I still have no desire to watch it.

District 9 Inglorious Basterds

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, CRAZY HEART – Bridges wasn’t nominated for The Men Who Stare At Goats?  RIGGED!  I’m kidding.  Of course, I’ve never even heard of this movie.
George Clooney, UP IN THE AIR – Another missed opportunity for The Men Who Stare At Goats.
Colin Firth, A SINGLE MAN – Love Colin Firth.  Unless this is a sequel to Love Actually, then I’m not interested.
Morgan Freeman, INVICTUS – I have a man-crush on Matt Damon and I love Morgan Freeman.  That still does not make me want to see a movie about rugby…and apartheid.
Jeremy Renner, THE HURT LOCKER – Again, I hear Renner is great in this.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Matt Damon, INVICTUS – Yay, Matt!  I’m still not going to see this movie.
Woody Harrelson, THE MESSENGER – WTF is The Messenger?!  Harrelson should have been nominated for Zombieland.  There, I said it.
Christopher Plummer, THE LAST STATION – What?
Stanley Tucci, THE LOVELY BONES – Nice nom for Tucci.  He was good in this sequel to What Dreams May Come.
Christoph Waltz, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS – Waltz better win this.  From what I see here, he PWNS this category.

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5 Star Wars items they shockingly haven’t made yet

Posted in humor, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags , , , on January 26, 2010 by Paxton

George Lucas is a media merchandising whore. There is not one other property that consistently sells billions of dollars of toys and merchandise to consumers than Star Wars. Not one.  And Star Wars has been doing it since 1977.  So it’s not surprising to think of the breadth of items that have been released with the Star Wars logos all over them.  I myself did a very popular story (that pretty much changed the world) about hilariously inappropriate Star Wars items.  There isn’t a lot of items that are man-made that haven’t had some type of tie-in to Star Wars.

However, I have come up with a few items that have yet to be produced.  Below are 5 Star Wars branded items that surprisingly have NOT been made yet.  And George really needs to get on this because these items are AWESOME.  They would easily give Lucas that little extra pocket money he so desperately needs right about now.

The Emporer Taser1 The Emporer Taser 2
The Emperor Collector Series Taser Gun – One of my favorite scenes in the Star Wars movies is the final Death Star Showdown between Jedi Luke, Darth Vader and The Emperor.  When The Emperor pulled out Sith Lightning after Luke had defeated his father, I was like, “OH S**T!!  WTF WAS THAT!?”  Sith Lightning is BADASS.  So I think it’s a natural to take The Emperor, Sith Lightning and Taser guns, mix well, and give them to law enforcement and kids.  Imagine thousands of kids playing Death Star in the backyard, whipping out The Emperor Taser gun, whispering, “And now young Skywalker, you will die” and then unleashing the full stunning fury of blue Sith Lightning on their brother or sister.   Can you imagine a cop that wouldn’t shout “Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Darkside” before he tases the crap out of a degenerate criminal?  It would be GLORIOUS!!!

Darth Vader Asthma Inhaler Darth Vader Asthma Inhaler 2
Darth Vader Asthma Inhaler – It’s quite obvious that Vader has a bit of an asthma problem.  Listening to Vader wheeze his way through three and a half movies is like listening to Rosie O’Donnell walk a flight of steps.  Maybe we should use this to give confidence to kids with asthma.  “See, Darth Vader has asthma and he destroyed an entire PLANET!”  I can just imagine the commercial now, Darth Vader in the Death Star planning room.  One of the Moffs starts choking and weezing and you think Vader is choking him with the power of The Force.  Instead, Vader says, “Your lack of breath is disturbing” then hands the out of breath officer the Darth Vader Asthma Inhaler.  The Moff takes a few puffs and the meeting can resume to pats on Vader’s back for a job well done.  Excuse me while I head to the patent office website to copyright that “lack of breath” line I just came up with.  GENIUS!

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