Meco’s Star Wars funk album

Finally, after years of looking, today I found it at the Belmont swap meet.

Christmas top 5 2012 – #1

This is a fairly well known song, I suspect but it seemed appropriate to feature it this year as I will actually be in New York for Christmas, but not in the drunk tank, I hope.

Christmas top 5 2012 – #2

It is still strange to think that Bob Dylan did a Christmas album. Turns out that the idea of Dylan crooning Christmas has been around for years. Check out this novelty number from back in the 60’s.

Christmas top 5 2012 – #3

Fancy a little bit of country boogie? Take it away Hank Snow.

Christmas top 5 2012 – #4

Who wants something loud for Christmas? Here is some early Bob Seger, taking a cue from James Brown, and rocking it for the yuletide season.

Christmas top 5 2012 – #5

So, I know, I have not blogged a post in months. Changing jobs can do that. But I knew I had to come back for the annual Christmas top 5.
I love Bacharach tunes at any time of the year so why not at Christmas? I guess Burt was trying for Christmas immortality with this tune. Maybe it was popular when it came out but I had never heard it until last year when I came across an old LP of A&M Christmas songs, which included this number. Here it is as performed by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass from Herb’s Christmas Album, which I later picked up (Herb was the A in A&M, just so you know).

A song for the last day

Last day here at UWA, and so I drove the spare car to work. It’s something of a older car; it has a tape deck. I grabbed a tape at random this morning to listen to on the way here. I shoved my hand into a tape drawer and pulled out Bob Dylan at Budokan. I thought it would be set to side 1 but side 2 is what played as I drove here this morning. By the time I got here at UWA and parked the car the song that was playing was Going, Going, Gone. Wow, I couldn’t have chosen a better song for my last day here. Y’know I actually started up this blog because of an internal education programme here at UWA, so it is also appropriate that I use this blog to say goodbye to UWA.

#SpiderMan, another movie tie in board game review

I had meant to post this back when the Amazing Spider-Man film came out but I just didn’t get round to it.

Anyway, with this film out this is a good time to review the Amazing Spider-Man board game.

Look out Spider-Man! Here come the guest stars.

First, a word on how I came to have this game; I have no idea. It was just in our house when I was growing up. So too was Monopoly, Cluedo and Battleship. I remember getting Yahtzee for Christmas, but this Spider-Man board game was just always there. Maybe it was my brothers.

Growing up I never played this game properly. I just used it like a basic roll dice and move type of game, going round the circles until finally getting to the middle to win. Honestly, it has only been recently that I have finally gotten round to reading the instructions on how to play.

Despite all the images of Spider-Man, there is technically no Spider-Man in this game

For a game named after the most popular Marvel comics character it is actually something of a letdown to discover that in playing this game you don’t play as Spider-Man. Rather, you play as one of these four other Marvel characters; Thor, Iron Man, Hulk or Namor the Sub-Mariner. Since all of these characters have been Avengers, I could have reviewed this game for that recent film. But going back to Spidey, where is he? His image is all over the board game but as a character in the game he is just not there. Although it is not stated it is implied that since you are racing to get to the centre of the board where Spidey is, you are perhaps rescuing him. This is more Marvel Team-up than an issue of the Amazing Spider-Man. 

So, since you get to be another Marvel character, does your playing piece look like them? No; this game is from way before intricate playing pieces. I suspect that the age of this game may be as old as those old style Marvel cartoons; the ones where the animation consisted of panels from the comics with a few moving bits added.

See, that green one is Hulk, and that red one is Iron Man

Hence you get colour coded playing pieces; green for Hulk, red for Iron Man, etc. However, you do get two playing pieces per character, which is odd. Maybe the heroes have clones? Then again, since we are in the world of Amazing Spider-Man, best not mention clones.

As I mentioned, before the object of the game is to get to the middle, where Spider-man is. As you go around the circles you face various villains and collect points for each one you subdue. Sorry, that makes it sound more involved than it truly is. Actually you just land on a spider web and you pick up a villain card; fight over. Each villain card has different point allocations, such as the Ring Master is worth 2 points and Boomerang is worth 1. Also, those are actual Spider-Man villains, of which there are very few named in this game. I confess my Spider-Man knowledge is not that extensive but I am pretty certain there was never a Spidey villain named Lion Face; he’s worth 3 points incidentally. You never lose in battle against the villains but you sort of face up against the other heroes (hero fights, how very Marvel). If you land in the same square as another hero you knock them back to their home base and they have to start again.

Shooter? Lion Face? Thunder Bull? Maybe they were villains in the old 60s cartoon.

Play is controlled by cards. You pick up a travel card when it is your turn and follow the directions to move that many places. Some travel cards work against you by making you go back to the start.

Once one player reaches Spider-Man with both of their playing pieces the game ends and a point tally is taken. There were special bonus points for being the first and second person to the middle. Whoever has the highest score wins.

It is fairly simple but the difficulties arise from having to go completely around each circle and land on the right spot to gain entry to the lower level. The more players the harder it is to avoid being knocked back to your respective home base.

Really it should read an exciting game with all these other guys…

I like this game; it is fun and not too hard. The emphasis is on accruing points and not just racing to the centre. If only you actually got to be the Amazing Spider-Man. I give this game 3 Dice.

 

Last weekend at #RevFilmFest

Saw as many films as I possibly could over the last weekend of the Revelation Film Festival.

On Saturday I took it fairly easy seeing the Eames doco a second time and catching a screening of Beauty Is Embarrassing. This doco was about the life and career of Wayne White, whose work I now recognise from the cover of Nixon by Lampchop. This was a great doco and Wayne is quite a character.

Later on Saturday I caught Paul Williams: Still Alive. I know of Paul Williams but I have never really listened to him. I have a compilation of his on record that I don’t think I have ever listened to. This doco featured the film maker quite prominently interacting with his subject which had both good and bad moments. Personally what I found most interesting was all the archive footage of Paul in the 1070s where it seems he was on every television show including Johnny Carson 50 times, including one time dressed as the character Paul played in a Planet of the Apes sequel. It was quite a revelation just how funny Paul was. He still is, as the more recent footage proved. I think Revelation missed a great chance here to do a midnight screening of Phantom of the Paradise, which was a film that Paul also starred in.

Sunday was a big day. First up was The Trouble With Bliss, starring Michael C Hall. I didn’t know what to expect but this film turned out to be a funny and at times quite odd film. I rather liked it. Top marks also to the short film that preceded it; A Tale Of Obession. This rather good short film had some of the best opening credits ever.

Rampart was next. This gritty corrupt LA cop tale was involving but it took a while to get into what they were saying. It felt like all the background noise in the film was louder than the speech. Ned Beatty was present adding a touch of 70s cinema to the proceedings.

The next film in my Sunday line up was Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines. This film was a blast. The producer was present for a Q&A afterwards helmed by Judith Lucy who also was a blast. The final blast for me was I ran into my friend Bookbuster who was there, as she gave to the kickstarter project for the film. Bookbuster even got asked by the producer to stand up and relate the tale of the Batgirl fan at recent comic cons. Go learn more about this film here.

The last film of the night and the Revelation film festival for 2012 was Buff. This locally made film about film buffs was great fun. I especially liked hearing David Stratton say that Transformers 3 was shit. Ha!

Well done to the Revelation festival for another great year.

 

 

 

 

a few more movies at #RevFilmFest

Caught the last screening of The Whisperer in Darkness at Revelation Perth Film Festival last night. This is essentially a fan flick as it is made by the H P Lovecraft Historical Society, but an incredibly well made fan flick done in 1930’s RKO style. It was very well done with some real moments of tension.

Earlier this week I also caught a doco called Eames: The Architect and Painter, about the life and work of Charles and Ray Eames, the husband and wife team. I confess I only knew them from the one or two chairs that I see referred to as Eames chairs so this doco was a real eye opener to just how much work they produced. Catch it if you can this weekend. I left the cinema wanting a solar powered do nothing machine, which they had designed and created for an Alcoa commercial.

Crispin Glover’s second night at the Revelation was not as well attended as the first, but he was still a hoot. Some different books were shown in his slide show, and his first film What Is It? was shown this time. I asked about a credit that I noticed in the credits and yes, Crispin’s dad dug the grave used in the film, as his dad, apart from being an actor, once also worked as a grave digger. Crispin’s parents also appear in his other film It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine. Crispin also answered my other question of has he yet written the third film It Is Mine; yes he has, but he didn’t say how close he was to making it. Thanks to Revelation for bringing Crispin out here.

Onto the last weekend of Revelation for this year. I’ll try and cram as many movies in as I can.