Into Stella!

I came back from the Nolan movie, インターステラー (Into Stella), tonight and it was terrific. Not completely unpredictable yet part of the fun was the journey.
The most confusing bit for me is who is Stella and why are they going into her?

Check out the 13 second mark on this and you'll be similarly confused.



Apart from the movie pamphlet, there were no goods for sale, not even a Clear File, dang it! But since Yamato 2199 has just been released, there is tons of merchandise for it. I didn't get any because I was with a friend and didn't want to geek out too severely yet I did manage to drop 500 yen on a lucky draw item and won the #1 prize! (Visual Sheet.)

Sweet!
I also picked up a pair of advance tickets for this weekend's release of The Hobbit, The Battle of 5 Hours (or something like that.) Considering advance tickets for this movie began a year ago after the Smaug one, I was surprised to see that there were some premiums left over. I landed two Hobbit memo pads.

By the way, if you come across this flavour of Pepsi, you'd be wise to avoid it. I'm not sure what the colour Pink is supposed to taste like but sugary water probably comes close. It's not even carbonated to give it some fizz. Yuck!

I had a pretty good day at school today; I got to wear a giant bear head at one point, and play "Pin the nose on Rudolph". FYI, a Santa hat pulled down over a kid's eyes makes a dandy blindfold. Happy 50th Anniversary, 'Dolph. You've aged well.

 Enough of the cutesy stuff, for those of you who came here looking for creepy stuff, look no further...

It's Hobbit Forming.

Traffic was terrible, parking at the Mall was abysmal (40 minutes to get a spot, 50 minutes to get to the street from the roof afterwards) and the lineup for tickets was labrynthine. But it was definitely worth it!

Without getting into spoilers, I can say that it was a fast-paced romp full of Daring Dwarves, a Boisterous Bilbo, a Grand Gandalf, a Grotesque Gollum, Gruesome Goblins and Ominous Orks!



Biggest disappointment: NO Star Trek preview (we did get an Oz preview in 3D so that helped ease the pain.) I refrained from making too many inane comments throughout the movie (there was never a chance) but at the end I made the following quip, "Forecast: There will be Smaug."

Slightly aggravated that I was given the wrong Clear File. This one is cool but I wanted the one with all the cast on it. Oh well, at least I got a "Sting" Letter Opener.

Here's a preview of The Hobbit for your perusal.



Today's Christmas connection. The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus is done by the same production team that did the above video (the visuals, not the voices.) Associate Producer, Masaki Iizuka, also did The Hobbit in '77. Most of the production team worked for Topcraft, a precursor to Studio Ghibli alongside Hayao Miyazaki.

If I can find my preview ticket, I'm off to see Frankenweenie tomorrow!

Getting Hammered.

I've been relatively quiet for the last few days, concentrating on school, watching the tube and worrying about my health. Well fortunately my health scare has abated, a spot on the lung has turned out to be fatty deposits gathering around my heart. That isn't exactly great news though, it means I have to lose weight and that means dieting and exercising. Sigh.

To celebrate my goodish news, I popped into the cinema to watch a movie. I saw The Woman in Black which, though not too scary, is an effective little thriller with a creepy score. Nice return to the fore for Hammer.

While there I picked up another ticket to The Hobbit for a friend (I sure hope we get this trailer!)



I also got an Evangelion Combo, popcorn, a drink and this wacky character!

In other news, in order to celebrate Disney's 111th birthday, here is one of the Three Little Pigs plus a trio of characters that come in the latest round of Choco-eggs. I have actually received doubles of each of these so, because I have to swear off chocolate anyway, no more eggs for me.

Finally since I'm teaching Rudolph to all my kids this year, here's a little mashup that one of my roving reporters recommended.

No Longer a Toys R Us Kid.

There was a time when I loved popping into a Toys Am Us to pick up some cards or figures or just to browse.   Today I popped into the one in Natori on the way home from work. The first thing I noticed was a display of Monstrous Lego! Alas, I have neither the time, money, patience or space to build such a monstrosity but they sure are sweet!

Too expensive but I'd consider getting the Creature or this LOTR Spider!

A rather auspicious start but unfortunately it went downhill from there. A cool game mixing the classic Universal Monsters and some classic Japanese Yokai. I still haven't played my Kitaro game, so I'll hold off on this one.

I'd considered this puzzle but again expensive, time consuming and it takes up a lot of space.

 If I had a spare C-note kicking around, I'd definitely get RoboSaurus!

Very disappointed in the lack of Superhero material. All there was was some Spider-Man junk from the last movie. Why are Spidey and the Lizard buffed up in Robotic suits?

So ultimately, all I ended up picking up was a Captain America Pez!

I also grabbed some Halloween treats. I found some KitKats (Pumpkin Pudding) but I'm not sure if they're the same as the ones I bought and forgot in Morioka. They taste okay and there are 13 minis in the bag, each one has a little Monster cartoon character upon it.

I also got some Snoopy Gummis; I particularly like the vampiric Snoopy & Chuck and the Linus Mummy with the Masked Marvel!

The most intriguing snack was this package of different Senbei, crunchy rice cakes by Befco called Bukkake Bakauke. Great packaging but boring little snacks themselves.

Woohoo, less than a week away from The Countdown to Halloween...stay tuned...same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

It's Hobbit Forming.

Just a quickie before I retire...I popped into the Movix on my way home cuz it's Men's Day just to see if there was anything worth watching (there wasn't.) But since I was in the neighbourhood, I thought I'd pick up an advance ticket for Monster Hotel. Hopefully I'll be able to watch it somewhere in English, who doesn't want to hear Adam Sandler ham up the place? With the ticket, came a little key chain with some of the cast dangling from it.

As you can see, I also got a ticket for the ホビット and that came with a File Folder to add to my collection of FFINU (file folders I'll never use).

Looking forward to these two for sure!

After reading a few comments, I took a closer look at the key chain and it's even cooler than I'd thought. Each character has a little logo on the obverse (like a bat on the flip-side of Drac) and it comes with two keys. The Skeleton Key is shaped like a skull! So awesome. Now if I only had the box that it opened...

Bourbon Street.

I just discovered that there is a New Orlean's style restaurant in Rappongi named Bourbon Street. I've been to the real Bourbon St. twice and if this place does Po'Boys, then I'm there.

Speaking of Bourbon, that happens to be the name of a confectionary company in Japan that also makes Choco-Wafers. These yummy crunchy cookies often happen to come with a trading card or stickers from tie-in movies, for example, MIIB. I recently rewatched both movies and am impressed how well they retain their rewatchability.

Another movie that doesn't quite retain its rewatchability (or for some its initial watchability) is DareDevil. One does have to appreciate the amount of crap that came out for its release though, including stickers and keychains.

There was an awful lot of Spidermania in Japan in the early part of this millennium and doubles of these stickers currently adorn my desk and computer.

Another stickery movie was X2. I ate a lot of cookies and I still don't think I got all the stickers.

When LotR first came out, I saw it in Korea so I missed out on some of the Japanese paraphernalia. I did, however get most of the stickers.

Finally, here are some miscellaneous stickers that may or may not be Bourbon...