Vintage Toy Purchase: Ghostbusters Firehouse!

This past weekend was my 5th year anniversary with my wonderful wife.  We decided to venture to the Oregon coast and spend the day.  If you know the Oregon coast then you know that it usually rains and is kinda dreary and cold most of the time.  This day was no exception!  We had no problem enjoying the great clam chowder and cheese bread from famous Moes or the great salt water taffee. Another great thing about the coast is the many antique stores that they have there.  My wife and I visited a quaint store called The Rocking Horse Mall in Lincoln City via word of mouth that they had some old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles there.  

This store is 2 stories of stuff.  When I say stuff I mean they had everything from old vintage doll houses to blown glass to records and sea shells.  The first floor was mostly a bust for me and decided I would head up to the second floor.  At first sight I saw a vintage Masters of the Universe Castle Greyskull.  It was very cool but nothing out of the ordinary.  I had seen these before in many a toy store or antique shop.  I began to devour the second floor but still nothing.  I did come across a couple of old ninja turtles but nothing that I didn't already have or that wasn't in good shape.  I began to head back to the stairs when I saw a familiar site.  It was an old action figure of Egon from The Real Ghostbusters tv show.  Now I had watched this show as a kid hundreds of times and knew whom he was instantly.  As I gaze at him I start to widen my view as to what he was actually sitting in.  Holy shnikes!



I was looking at The Real Ghostbusters Firehouse!  In a nutshell, this is a doll house that holds the Ghostbuster action figures and Ecto-1 vehicle.  I really couldn't believe it.  Like most toys from the 1980's these are becoming rare and harder to find except for on websites like Ebay for hundreds of dollars.  So here came the big question.....how much?  The tag said $20.00.  My jaw dropped and I walked out the door the owner of a vintage The Real Ghostbusters Firehouse.  I was a kid leaving the candy store.  I am posting some pictures of what it looks like.  These are not pictures of my item but very similar.  The one I bought is not 100% complete but very close and is an amazing toy to own.  Below the photos you will find a couple of videos I embedded that talk more about the toy.  Thanks for reading!

August 19th is Fright Night!

Woo Hoo!  Here it is folks!  Your first look at the new poster and theatrical trailer for the remake of the 1985 hit film Fright Night.  First of all, I am a BIG BIG fan of the original starring Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowall. This is a classic 80's horror film and I highly recommend it if you have never seen it.  Also released is the new trailer! The new film has been relocated to Las Vegas and stars Colin Farrell as the new vampire next door and Anton Yelchin as Charlie the paranoid teenage neighbor.  Also cast is Mclovin Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Evil Ed.  The premise from the quick trailer looks pretty similar to the original but with perhaps a bit more action.  Interestingly enough, we get no glimpse of the great Peter Vincent character played by David Tennant and the great Roddy McDowall in the original. The trailer is below.

Real Steel Trailer!

This came out yesterday I believe so I am late in posting it. Real Steel stars Hugh Jackman as an old washed out boxer down on his luck. Instead of using humans to box they use robots.  This film looks really cool.  It looks like it is based not too far in the distant future and the robots look pretty amazing also.  I guessing from the trailer that Jackman is able to train the robot to fight like him to win the big tournament.  It looks pretty original too.  The film is directed by Shawn Levy and also stars Evangeline Lilly and Kevin Durand.  It is to be released in October of this year.

New TMNT Vintage Toys!

Hey everyone!  I am back again with a new post about some old school toys that arrived in the mail today!  Ebay seems to be the best place for all of the stuff you used to own but don't and want to have again.  I spoke in earlier posts about having Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) action figures as a kid and have slowly been purchasing many and more of them to my ever expanding collection.  I am currently at 69 figures in all.  I added 2 more today and thought I would share them with you.  Check them out below!

The turtle above or should I say the robot turtle above is called "Metalhead".  This toy I was very fond of as a young man and very excited to add it to my collection.  It came intact with all of it's accessories and the information card from the original bubble box.  It is in really good shape and looks like it hasn't been played with.

The next turtle is "Sewer Surfin Mike".  I'm not exactly sure what series or year he is from but I purchased him because he looked outrageously different and came with that cool surfboard.  He looks great on my shelf with the rest of my collection.  Both toys came from Ebay seller 22ktoys.  Click on the link and you can check out some of his other auctions.  Stay tuned for more toy posts later this week!

The truth behind this summers blockbuster movies!

I found these interesting posters of at I09.com and thought I would share them all with you.  I believe they are originally from www.theshiznit.com.  I thought they were pretty funny and really did have a good point about what I thought about these films coming out.  I especially enjoy the Harry Potter poster.  It is about time!

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in production!

If you haven't heard of the book to the left then you should! Seth Grahame-Smith wrote a novel titled "Abraham Lincoln: Vampure Hunter" last year and it was a best seller.  My wife picked up a copy and said that she loved it.  From what I understand the book is very factual pertaining to the different situations that happened in Mr. Lincolns life that is also happening in the book.  The only thing is that now there are vampires and vampires cause many of the different scenarios that take place in his life.  The cover alone looks pretty cool. Good news!  The film version of the book is happening right now and we have the photo to prove it.  It is being filmed by Timur Bekmambitov of Wanted fame and stars Dominic Cooper. Also I am embedding a "book trailer" hyping the original release.  This is not from the theatrical film.

Movie Review: Thor

Took my 2 teenage daughters this weekend to our local comic book shop for "Free Comic Book Day"!  By the way, Free Comic Book Day happens the first weekend of May and is a great day to encourage reading.  You can find out more info here.  Afterwards we caught an early showing of Thor.....

I never like to read early reviews of films.  I always tend to hear one way or another if a film is very well liked or not.  If I do open a review it is for the first paragraph and the last just to get a taste of what the guy before me thought.  Thor had been playing at least a week all around the world before it opened in the USA and has been doing not too shabby.  It opened in first place here with around 66 million I believe which is big.  Not as big as Fast Five the week before.  Even internationally it is trailing Fast Five in the receipts.  The big question is how was it?  It was ok.  It was no Iron Man but better than Iron Man 2 and still trailing behind The Incredible Hulk.  Does it fit into the cannon of movies that lead up to The Avengers?  Yes it does just fine.

This film stars Chris Hemsworth as the Mighty Thor, Anthony Hopkins as his father Odin and Tom Hiddleston as his evil brother Loki.  On earth we have the female lead and Thor's love interest Natalie Portman along with Stellan Skarsgard and Kat Dennings.  Returning as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Coulson from all of the Avenger pre-films is Clark Gregg.  The acting was great.  Hemsworth was perfect as Thor.  You could not have better casting as Hopkins and Hiddleston almost stole the whole movie with his evil Loki.  Portman was excellent in her role as a local scientist and future Mrs. Thor.  I am actually surprised she would appear in a movie like this.  It just doesn't seem to me like a film she would be interested in.  What do I know though?  She was great and I hope they bring her back in later installments.  Jeremy Renner also makes a cameo as Nighthawk.  I am very interested in seeing where they go with that character.

The story of this film is not really complicated.  I don't really have any prior knowledge of Thor and his background and lore.  My daughters did and they thought the film stayed intact fairly well. Thor is banned from his heavenly home world of Asgard by his father and banished to Earth as a man due to his arrogance and pride.  His mighty hammer is also banished to Earth about 50 miles from him and is now in the hands of Agent Coulson with S.H.I.E.L.D.  It is on Earth Thor meets Natalie Portman's character Jane Foster and her colleagues Erik and Darcy.  The film weighs in on Jane and her friends helping Thor, even though they think he is crazy, get to his might hammer. As that is happening on Earth, in Odin falls ill and Loki takes over the kingdom.  It is in this he finds that he was actually a son of the enemy of Asgard.  The mighty Frost Giants.  During a great war he was taken from them as a baby and raised in Asgard.  When he learns of this he devises a plan to open Asgard to the Frost Giants rule and then destroy the Earth and rule the galaxies.

I liked this film.  I liked the acting and the special effects were amazing.  The city of Asgard is one of the most amazing computer designs I have ever seen.  I have no complaints in that department. The story for me was more of a letdown.  This is an origin story and I get that.  Overall it seemed weak and left some major holes through out that left my daughters and I asking each other all of the same questions.  Honestly, I never knew if Thor and company were Gods or higher beings or what?  That is just my lack of knowledge and I am sure those that are more tact in the mythology would get it but for the average joe like me it was kind of a hang up.  On another note.  I couldn't help but think of Masters of the Universe especially when Thor's friends "The Warriors 3" arrive from Asgard to help get Thor his powers back.  Here are these 2 guys and a chick walking down the middle of a street in backwoods america dressed like they just came from some elaborate s&m costume ball.  Completely out of the scene.  Now that I think of it also reminds me of Superman 2 when General Zod and his 2 comrades arrive in the south to a bunch of gun toting red necks.

We saw this in 3D.  It was cool but still $10.00 for an early screening.  I thought the 3D for the new Pirates of the Caribbean looked better.  It actually makes me want to see it in 3D and I wasn't planning to go at all.  Overall the 3D was fine and you will have a good time.  Go see it!  Don't expect much.  If you have a choice between this and Fast Five then see Five.  This film is worth seeing in the theater but don't feel like you missed out if you didn't.  Stay behind after the credits for a special scene like in all of the recent Marvel movies.

Fast 5 Mechamania Review!

The summer big hit movies have official begun with this past weekends release of Fast 5 AKA Fast and the Furious Part 5.  From here on out we have such films as Thor and Green Lantern to Transformers 3 yet to come.  Does Fast 5 hold it's own or is time for the franchise to just die?  Let me put it to you this way.  Fast 5 made an estimated 83 million dollars this weekend.  That is the biggest opening for the month of April and the biggest opening from Universal Studios in history! Jurassic Park held the previous title for Universal.  Ok, so a crap load of people saw this film but was it any good?

YES!  My wife and I went to the local theater and watched it this past Friday night.  I started that morning working at 4:00am.  I had been up for 15 hours with 5 hours of sleep the night before when we began to watch this film.  I have a history of falling asleep during films especially when they get slow.  Fast 5 was the complete opposite and I was wide awake stuffing popcorn into my fat face the whole time!  What a ride!  I asked my wife how many films we actually paid to watch the 5th sequel in the series?  Perhaps only Star Wars or Star Trek.  In a nutshell, Fast 5 is a kick ass film busting at the seams with pure adrenaline and with the addition of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson it explodes with pure machismo and non stop action!

Returning from all of the previous films are Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordanna Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Matt Schulze, Sung Kang and Gal Gadot.  I've always wondered what the deal was with Lucas Black from Tokyo Drift.  He would be just as good as any of the other actors to make a return to the franchise.  Perhaps he will show up in the next film?  The film is directed by Justin Lin who has helmed the previous two Fast films.  Introducing to this film series is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Current WWE Superstar and all around bad ass mother trucker!  I think many people have been waiting for this guy to become a bonafied bad ass and he finally did in this film.  No tooth ferry!  I'm tired of these Disney kiddy flicks.  Let's get to the killin and kickin ass! Finally The Rock has become an action star!  He made the movie for me and even if I wasn't a fan of his from WWE he still would have made the movie!

In many ways this film reminded me of Oceans 11.  You've got all the main guys from the previous films set to take on one last job.  One big heist.  Steal over 100 million bucks from a local drug lord in Rio De Janeiro.  Not too complicated of a story but I have come to accept that from this series as is.  I'm not looking for some in depth mind bender.  I am looking for fast cars, explosions and action to the brim.  This film delivers.  It starts up right where the last film left with Dominic (Vin Diesel) going to prison and his buddies and their fast cars helping to bust him out.  I like how it literally starts where the last film ended and doesn't leave you guessing about what happened since the last film.  Instant continuation is always appreciated in my book.  Granted that doesn't always work for every movie but I enjoyed it with this one.  Through out all of this you have the big surprise of the film, Dwayne Johnson.  He plays a enforcement agent on the hunt for our good guys and is relentless in his pursuit.  The fight scene alone between The Rock and Diesel is worth the price of admission.  

I can't stress enough that this is one of those films that you don't really think about it but just watch and enjoy the scenery.  On the downside their are little loopholes and question marks that kinda leave you wondering "huh" but who cares really?  It doesn't distract from the film as a whole.  I'm not expecting this film to win at The Oscars or something.  So the big question to ask is does our gang of racers get their money or will The Rock bust them before it can all go down?  Go to the theater and watch this!  You will not be disappointed!  Stay through the credits for another big reveal into the next installment.  Yes, like you didn't know Sexy 6 is on the way.  Sexy 6?  hahaha