Spam.

There are a number of important opportunities to take advantage of when one’s significant other is out of town.  The two most important, however, are turning up the air conditioner, and drinking plenty of beer.  And also maybe eating a can of Spam.

I’ve never had Spam before, at least not that I remember, but when a fellow co-worker jokingly mentioned it as something a bachelor would eat, I decided it just felt right.  The 24oz Pabst Blue Ribbon I added of my own accord.  I actually like PBR.  I know, I know, it’s laden in hipster-rich chic, but I honestly don’t think its flavor is dreadful.  And I’ve tried my share of cheap beers.  Burger, Hudepohl, Hamm’s, Schlitz, Natty Light, Old Milwaukee, and I find Pabst to be the best of them all, not a terribly far cry from its much more popular domestic brethren and much cheaper.  Oh, and also, for the hipster in me, this:

http://www.youtube.com./watch?v=HeWUXV89w0g

I wasn’t quite sure how to “prepare” spam.  Both on the front and back of the can it is prepared as a sandwich, so I figured this was the best route to go.  I had to stop by Kroger in order to get a loaf of bread, as the one in my home had been ridden with a bit of the fungal growth.

At first I thought it might be kind of ironic to eat it on some fancy bread, but after a short, yet heated, internal argument, I decided I wanted to sort of stick with the “everyman” Spam meal.  I think of Spam as an affordable working man’s meat, and the working man, he don’t give a spit about Pepperidge Farm’s thin-sliced Deli Rye and Pumpernickel swirled half loaf.  Nor Brownberry’s 10 Grain “Health-full” half loaf.

And after looking…..neither did I.  I mean, really?  $4.29 for a half loaf of bread?  What could make it so much better?  Oh, your bread has more grains than mine?  And also it has a few oats in the crust?  You know what, I’d just as soon buy the Kroger brand of Lite White.  It tastes like bread and it has a picture of a mother playing with her daughter on the front.  You know what $4.29 doesn’t buy Pepperidge Farms?  Family wholesomeness.  Maybe you should think of that when you’re trying to sell 16 slices of Goldfish-shaped thin slices for five bucks, you gimmicky rip-off artists! 

The makings of my meal.  My co-worker (Mr. Douglas Kuhlman….although around my crib I refer to him as Riptide, since he is one of the few people I have ever met who actually remembers the short-lived TV show Riptide) had mentioned I should have an egg with my Spam.  I’m sure he meant a fried egg, but I have a lot of hard-boiled eggs premade.  I think it’s the thought of having an egg with a meal that doesn’t really need an egg anyway.  The working man loves eggs.  Easy and filling.  Just like the ideal woman.

A super dramatic pic of the top of the Spam can. I love cans of food with pull tabs.  It makes me feel like I’m in some post-apocalyptic America, trudging down gray, desolate countryside.  With every step the dust kicked up from my boots making me more and more thirsty.  Finally, weak with hunger and near delusional I stumble in to a 1950s ranch-stlye home.  I collapse on the floor and there, right in my line of sight, I see a small, raised ring…..a trap door!  A bomb shelter!  With the last remnants of my strength I pull the ring and the door flies open, revealing true, pure darkness.  Ever so cautiously I descend the rickety stairs in to the shelter with the help of my trusty flashlight.  Beneath is a cornucopia of canned goods.  Vegetables!  Beans!  Preservatives!  Meats!  If it turns out I am the last survivor of the human race, at least I can fill that void in my soul with a spoonful of potted meat and a side of Bumbleberry Jam.

 If you’re wondering what that is on the far end, it’s a seal proclaiming the 75^th anniversary of Spam.  The best thing about it?  When I opened the can of spam, you could see the indention of the seal pressed in to the top of the meat product.  Delicious.

Sans can, in all of its pinkish, gleaming glory.  I’m pretty sure, if you look real hard, right in the corner, you can make out the face of Jesus.  Or maybe that's the mascot from the Bad Boy Club clothing line.  No, really.  Google image search it.  He's right there.  In my Spam.

  

Cookin’ it up…….mmmmm…..just a bit brown on the edges now, don’t wanna over fry it…if you can do such a thing to processed/cured/nebulous/ham-bits.

The finished product.  I lightly toasted the bread and added a slice of Swiss cheese, because that’s what I had in the fridge.  In retrospect I kind of which it would have been a slice of neon-orange, individually packaged, Kraft American cheese, because that’s what I picture working everyman having in his fridge.  But cheese is cheese, and this sandwich was certainly not going to do without. 

Both of the pictures on the can had a tomato, so I added a tomato.  It might be overkill, but I think it adds some much needed class to the proceedings.  I considered adding a condiment as well, say mustard or mayonnaise, but I didn’t want to completely kill the flavor of the Spam.  I think this is one pork-based conglomeration needing to be TASTED.

The final three word verdict?  “Damn that’s SALTY!”  I guess you have to add a lot of salt to canned meat you want to keep edible for 5+ years.  I have to say, the tomato cut the salt a bit which made it much more palatable, and I eventually added a bit of spicy mustard, which even made it better.  I think I could enjoy a Spam sandwich every once and again provided it was dressed with lettuce, cheese, tomato and mustard, preferably spicy brown.  Although maybe, just maybe, I should try it in some of the ways this commercial recommends.  Did somebody say Spam pizza?!

SPAM COMMERCIAL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLRPJEoQBQQ

Weird Stuff at the Local Wal-Mart

When I first named this blog, I was a little worried people would think it inspired by “People of Wal-Mart.”  Not so.  Making fun of morbidly obese individuals who don’t have the cognitive ability to dress themselves appropriately is only moderately humorous one time, unless said person has a wildly inappropriate tattoo somewhere on their back.  Then it’s funny every time.

No, this blog was a lot more inspired by finding a Power-Man and Iron Fist action figure duo at Target.  You may not think it’s weird, but finding packaged action figures based on a comic that ended its run 25 years ago and was never popular even back then, well, that’s weird.  Especially at Target.  I wouldn’t even expect that sort of spectacle at my nearest comic specialty shop (big ups to Captain Comic on Beechmont).

Needless to say it was one of my favorite comics, and I purchased the figures and they are now sitting in my basement, still packaged, right between my (opened) “Shop S-Mart” Ash, complete with boomstick, and my (still packaged) Xander Harris construction worker figure, circa Season 7.  God I’m the coolest.

Which brings me to the things I find weird at Wal-Mart.  It actually started just a few months ago when I was walking back to the electronics section, and I passed a packaged action figure duo.  No, I’m not repeating myself.  I haven’t lost (all) of my short term memory just yet.

It was THIS duo:

Although on the surface they seem like perfectly normal toys, there are a number of strange things about this product.  Number one, they seem to be a tie-in with the movie “Wolverine: X-Men origins.” I haven’t had the will (or is it just plain unabashed stupidity?) to sit through that god-awful piece of tripe, but I don’t believe either Colossus or Cyclops were in the film.  Number two, Cyclops is simultaneously grabbing his head and his crotch.  I believe that is a move more associated with Captain EO than Cyclops.

Number three, fittingly enough, is the associated film is three years old.  I guess the reason they are still on the shelf is because it was a really shitty film, the characters packaged have no viable connection to said film, and because they are on clearance for TWENTY-FOUR DOLLARS!

I believe I paid $11.99 for my Power-Man and Iron Fist, and I cringed at forking over that much hard-earned cash.  Twenty-four dollars?  For a movie nobody has ever said anything good about?  For two characters not even in the film?  ON CLEARANCE?!

I should probably point out the obvious reason this diamond in the rough is worth its weight in paper exchange is the giant blue sticker at the top.  It’s a Wal-Mart EXCLUSIVE.  One day it will probably be worth big money.  I mock Colossus and Cyclops, but I’m stowing away my Wal-Mart exclusive copy of Foreigner’s “Can’t Slow Down” album for the day when it will be worth its weight in whatever monetary unit we use in the future.  Personally I’m hoping human livers or possum tongues.

And what was right beneath the ill-bred “collector’s edition” of two characters with no modern day following and so far removed from Chris Claremont’s rabid fan base nobody would even take the time to glance at it twice?

That’s right, a giant bin of wooden slide whistles.

I have no idea what you would do with a slide whistle.  Ostensibly you would use it to, well, whistle a jaunty tune.  But who do you buy a slide whistle for?  I can’t imagine anybody over the age of five would want to do anything besides set it on fire.  Furthermore, I can’t believe any adult who isn’t simply addled would want any child under six to have it, for fear he would use it with such fervor and so unrelentingly you would simply want to cram it down his throat.  I feel like the slide whistle can probably be laid to rest with such great toys as jacks or paddle ball or those stupid drums with beads on the side you shake back and forth between your palms…….yeah, you know what I’m talking about…

I feel like this blog is becoming somewhat superhero-centric but, in all fairness, I found every item here on the same clearance island.  So here we find a Nick Fury action figure.  There is absolutely nothing odd about this figure.  Well, I mean, except it is a Nick Fury action figure.  Who wants Captain America or Thor or Iron Man or Hulk or, hell, even Black Widow or Hawkeye when they can have NICK FURY!  He stalks around in the background and shoots a 9mm at Norse Gods!  Oh, Nick Fury, you’re dreamy!

I took the picture because it looks so goddamned much like Samuel L Jackson I find it just a little eerie.  I’m glad he’s an eye short else his steely gaze would be staring right in to my soul.  And the last place I want Sam Jack is in my soul.  Also, in the bottom right hand corner, it states INCLUDES WEAPONS!  As if you can’t see that by looking through the clear plastic packaging.  It’s a good thing too, because Fury without guns is like Cap without his shield, or Spidey without his webs, or the Hulk without his…..giant pummeling fists?

http://tinyurl.com/6mozfkl

Mmmmm……

Finally (for now) I ran across Buttontails, by LaLaLoopsy.  For those of you who don’t know me personally, I happen to not be a 10 year old girl, so I don’t know anything about the LaLaLoopsy line of toys.  I tried to research it at lalaloopsy.com, before I realized I didn’t really give a shit, and neither do you.  This was shortly after I clicked the catalog to try and gather extra information about Buttontails, and discovered there were 155 items for me to wade through.  On the first page there was a mermaid packaged with a pet blowfish though, so that’s cool.

The toy is kind of like a Mr. Potato Head, I guess, with some items appearing removable and some you have to sew on.  I didn’t actually handle the product, but I gather this from the slogan at the bottom stating “Sew Magical Sew Cute!”  Oh, what a pun.  I didn’t have the foresight to get the clearance price in the picture, but Buttontails’ “list price” on Amazon is $16.99.

Looks at Buttontails.  Look real close.  Do you see what I see?  Buttontails is a FUCKING SOCK!  How in the hell are they gonna sell a stuffed sock with ears for $16.99?  I know it comes with button eyes and limp pieces of heart-shaped cloth as well, but come on now….

Look, I’m all behind anything that gives little girls the chance to start honing their domestic skills by teaching how to darn socks at an early age, but you can get a Fruit of the Loom 6-pack of socks for $5.99, and little Sally can still have $10.99 to pick out whatever various items she wants to sew on to them.  Or she can cut the socks apart and sew them together and make a giant Buttonzilla.  Hm.  This actually sounds like a viable use of my time.  Buttonzilla may be making an appearance at some time in the future.

I’m not very good with a needle and thread.  Though I did personally sew up this sweet pig pillow back in, say, 6^th grade home economics?  Can’t be faded. 

Finally, here’s somebody killing it on a slide whistle.  Get it, son!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b89B4AsYzs

Motherfucking Snakes on a Plane

Starring:  Samuel L. Jackson

Directed by:  David R. Ellis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV24FN4rDzE&ob=av2e

Huh, who knew, who knew.

That may seem a bit out of context.  If you missed my previous reviews, you can find them here:

 http://www.comingoffthereels.com/2012/the-long-kiss-goodnight/

And here:   http://inthequeuereviews.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/deep-blue-sea/

Samuel L Jackson, he’s a guy who has never met a script he didn’t like.  Seriously.  On IMDB he has 143 titles attributed to him.  I know IMDB is absolutely exhaustive…the list contains TV appearances, animated voice work, video game voice-overs, documentaries, etc….yet, still, 143 titles.  Take, for example, the filmography of someone like Harrison Ford.  66 titles.  That’s right, Jackson has more than twice the film appearances of Harrison Ford.

Other popular actors?  Say, Brad Pitt?  67.  Sean Connery?  91.  Sean Connery!  The man is 20 years older than Jackson and he still has 50 less acting credits!  Hell, even Val Kilmer, who seems like he’s in a new straight-to-dvd movie every week, only has 84 titles to his name.

I guess, what I’m trying to say here, is if anybody was going to be in a film with a title as ridiculous as Snakes on a Plane, it might as well be Sam Jack.  I’m just wondering if anybody else read it, furrowed their brow at it and threw it in the trash bin, or if they just went straight to Jackson, knowing he doesn’t even really read his scripts.  I mean, he was in XXX2, where they replaced Vin Diesel with Ice Cube.  That’s like making a Rambo sequel and replacing Stallone with Tom Berenger, or a sequel to Predator, replacing Schwarzenegger with Danny Glover…….wait a second…….

So, the movie.  Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) is riding his bike around the island of Hawaii when he witnesses the brutal murder of a U.S. Prosecutor by unruly gangster Daniel Kim (Byron Lawson).  Only his quick wit and quicker crotch rocket (I think it was actually a mudbike, but there’s less fun in that phrase) help him escape the scene without being caught.

The next day (or maybe later that day…who knows and, it is, by all measures, completely insignificant) he is saved from some would be assassins by Neville Flynn (Samuel L Jackson), an FBI agent who wants him to testify against Kim in Los Angeles.

Jones eventually agrees, of course, and the duo sets flight to Los Angeles.  Of course Kim is aware of this, and sends his goons to leave a little surprise on the plane; crates filled with poisonous snakes, agitated by a special pheromone in to being more aggressive.  I would have thought if you could sneak crates of snakes on a plane maybe you could just manage getting a bomb on there, but that doesn’t really lend itself to very intricate plotting, I guess.

So how, you ask, does Kim know the snakes will actually attack Jones?  Well, it doesn’t really matter if they do, as long as they are successful in bringing the entire plane down.  As long as he expires in one manner or the other.  More or less ludicrously plotted than Deep Blue Sea?  You be the judge.

Still, I must admit, I rather like Snakes on a Plane.  The use of a giant Boeing 747 helps out immensely, giving the characters in the film room to move about.  From coach, up a set of stairs to the ultra-posh first class, in to the cockpit, and even in to the bowels of the plane, no stone is left unturned.  The death count is high and a couple deaths are rather gruesome and still others are, well, humorous.

Originally shooting for a PG-13 rating, they ratcheted up the violence and language in order to get an R, the opposite of what happens in almost every single film because it restricts certain viewers from seeing it.  Rumor has it the film was originally supposed to be titled Pacific Air Flight 121 (ick), but Jackson supposedly asked it be changed back to the “working title.”  Whether there’s any truth to these rumors I cannot say, but there had to be a time in filming where they realized this wasn’t going to be the next big action film and decided to completely run with the idea of camp, and let it sink or swim on those merits.  A brilliant marketing move which led to the modest success of a film that could have very well been straight to video.

There are definitely flaws though.  The biggest being the film has way too many characters:  A wealthy socialite with a Chihuahua in her purse, a grumpy business man, four prominent airline attendants, a couple kids on their first plane trip by themselves, a foreign woman with a baby, a rapper with two bodyguards, a martial arts expert, another completely unimportant FBI agent, Taylor Kitsch, a pilot and co-pilot, etc. etc.  This doesn’t even include the characters on the ground Jackson is in contact with throughout.

I understand in a film such as this you have to have a handful of disposable characters but *spoiler alert* most of these people make it through the film.  Most of the deaths are completely innocuous characters who only utter a line or two of dialogue.  This probably had something to do with the reshoots used to give the film its R-Rating, but it also erodes some of the suspense.  At some point you start to settle in to the rhythm of the film and realize most of the characters don’t seem to be in any real danger of missing the final credits.

Also it’s the only film reviewed that was not directed by Renny Harlin.  What a letdown.

Snakes on a Plane is probably the weakest link in this three pack, but it’s also probably a little bit better than you would expect, and based on Jackson’s filmography I don’t think there would have been a more appropriate film to substitute.  I paid $14.99 at Target for the bunch of them, and feel it was worth every penny.  I would have been more sold on just a Renny Harlin 3 or 4-pack, but maybe that’s not as easy a sell to the average big box shopper.  Although I can’t imagine anybody passing on a 4-pack that includes Deep Blue Sea, Long Kiss Goodnight, Cliffhanger, and Mindhunters.  The average joe-shmo might not realize the glue holding them together is Mr. Harlin, but they would recognize the greatness therein, this I can guarantee. 

Gone Fishin'

Well, dear reader, looks like it’s time for another trip to my hometown of Evansville, IN, where she will welcome me home with metaphorical open arms, treating me to a much earned hero’s welcome.

Okay, okay, there is probably a bit of hyperbole in there.  Certainly I will be greeted by swarms of old compatriots, vying voraciously for my attention.  Mmmm……maybe still a dash of hyperbole.  I think it’s safe to say maybe one or two people will saunter out of their homes out of a sense of obligation.  Maybe even one of them will buy me a cheap, watery, domestic beer to “enjoy” or, at the very least, allow me to drink one cold mug out of a shared pitcher of Bud Light.  Thanks ahead of time to whoever you are.  I’m not heading back 200 miles just to revel in unfettered adulation, anyway.  No, I’m heading back to go fishing.

I’m not sure why I originally started fishing.  Well, I mean, I’m quite sure it had to do with my friend Shaun Knight, who likes to both fish and hunt.  The thing is I don’t ever remember expressing any interest in fishing.  I don’t know how I was convinced to do it that first time.  I don’t ever remember a time when I would have thought, “Sitting in a tiny boat in the 100 degree weather listlessly holding a pole in my hand waiting on a fish to bite for hours on end?  Yessir, sounds magnificent!”

But enjoy it I do.  Part of this comes from the one-of-a-kind ambiance present at Mr. Knight’s privately owned lake, “Foot’s Pleasure Club.”  No lie.  I’ll post a pic of the t-shirt when I get a chance.

Cell phones don’t work, the cabins are ramshackle, the wildlife is plentiful, snakes and skunks are commonplace, the toilets are holes in the ground, the plumbing (sink only!) is the coldest water you’ve felt in your life, and the lake itself is nothing short of fantastic.  It’s a pretty good-sized lake, not the bastardized version of suburban lore.  Turns out sitting in the middle of a giant body of water drinking beer and catching bass can be quite soothing.

I’m still not sold on hunting though.  Getting up at 3AM when it’s 30 degrees outside, dressing in layers of camouflage, spraying myself down with deer urine, climbing up in a tree and then sitting perfectly motionless all day, many times never even seeing any wildlife, well, sounds a bit tedious.  But who knows.  Slap a bow in my hand, send a fresh faced doe down my line of sight, and I might find it in my heart to let that arrow fly, straight and true.

Enough about killing or maiming harmless animals (I hate when the hook gets stuck behind the fish’s eye, it’s so damned hard to wrestle out of there).  How about something everybody can agree on; gettin’ drunk!

In addition to drinking on the lake, including waking up in the cabin and starting off the day with a Bloody Mary, I will probably indulge in a frosty beverage in many other of Evansville’s hot spots.  Namely Shaun’s parent’s home and the Gerst Haus.  I like these places because I am the kind of guy who likes to actually conversate with my friends, as opposed to yelling myself hoarse through a smoky haze over a cacophonous din of music I hate.

I know it seems like, at some point, I should probably give my liver some time to recuperate during my week’s visit.  But I doubt it will happen.  This shall be a week of antics and hedonism.  I shall eat and drink myself to the precipice, peering abysmally in to it, resisting the urge to plunge headlong.  For one week I will purposely (and gleefully) replace the angel on my shoulder with Poe’s Imp, where he and the devil will drive me around the town of Evansville creating hijinks and tomfoolery the likes of which the town has never seen!

Either that, or I will drink way too much on my first night then spend hours on Shaun’s couch consecutively watching all the episodes of the 3^rd season of the original Star Trek.  It’s a toss-up, really.  We once watched all of season two because we saw a screen capture on the box of “Mugato.”  Also because I was hungover as shit.  

 Hell man, who could sleep at night having missed that episode?  Of course, we spent about 10 hours waiting to find the episode he was in, and his 30-second blink and you’ll miss it cameo left much to be desired.  You can see it here, if you would like.  I seriously doubt you do, though. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP1VoH_0l-E

Hey, looks at this, he even has his own action figure!  THREE DIFFERENT VERSIONS!  If my basement wasn’t already filled with worthless paraphernalia I never use, I would probably buy one of these.  Still, it would look pretty good next to my pimped-out 80’s-retro-suited Adam Dunn Bobblehead…..

I know a lot of people would think it silly to spend a vacation heading to a little burgh like Evansville but I’m just heading back to break up the monotonous routine of my everyday life.  Plus, a lot of times when people complain about the city they live in they are really illustrating a classic case of greener on the other side-ism.  I’ve lived in the ‘Nati for about four years now, and the weird thing is I’ve spent a lot of time thinking “I wish I could find someplace more like the Gerst Haus.”

I like Cincinnati, don’t get me wrong.  And there are a lot of things to do here.  Baseball games, nice museums, a wide variety of restaurants and other cultural events.  Yet, I do often times miss my friends and family and my familiar haunts.  So is being able to view the exact same Miro painting hanging in the Cincinnati Art Museum worth the trade-off of drinking a fishbowl of icy Newcastle with an old friend?

Regardless, I’m headed down.  I will drink cheap, water domestics and full bodied microbrews.  I will eat pizza and deliciously greasy German fare.  I will watch bad movies and bad TV shows and possibly a few good ones….although I doubt it….and I will invite friends to take place in both sharp and dull-witted banter.  The week will pass painfully quickly and I will realize I didn’t have time to visit everybody I wanted to, as is always the case.  When I awake on my departure morning and bid the good Shaun Knight a fond adieu, I will leave with a head cloudy with nostalgia, only muddied further by the aforementioned idiom.

Not to let this meander too far down the path of serious introspection, I will also, and most importantly, go fishin’ with Shaun Knight.  Just like Danny Glover and Joe Pesci.  I’ll let you decide which of us in this particular comparison is Danny Glover and which is Joe Pesci, but I can assure you I will probably be the one grumbling about how I am “too old for this shit” by the end of the week.  Clip to follow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q37xJtuQ24w

I actually wanted to put the trailer on here for Gone Fishin’, but I’ll be damned if I can’t find it!  Why, in this day and age, I should be able to find a trailer for every movie made, especially one with two of our finest thespians! 

You can watch the entire film for free on Hulu, though.  If you’re some kind of sick masochist.

Obsessed With Krull

There are a lot of films I liked when I was, say, ten, which I still like today because I liked them then.  Maybe it’s a gentle wistfulness, nostalgia, associating a film with a time in my life when my biggest care in the world was the newest issue of The Amazing Spider-Man and collecting all the hard to find He-Man toys.  Like Snout Spout, or Modulok, or Mosquitor.  What young man’s He-Man collection is complete without the Orko figure?  WHOSE I ASK YOU?!

Or maybe they’re just good movies.  Although I’ve often times been told otherwise.

I know this happens because I’ve seen movies widely considered classics I should have seen when I was young, but do not much enjoy as an adult man.  I will give the biggest example of this, in hopes that it does not cost me my entire 42 person readership.  Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

I am sure if I would have seen this film when I was 16, I would have reveled in Bueller’s metaphoric middle finger unabashedly waved at the establishment with youthful enthusiasm.  But when viewed as an adult, probably around age 28 or so, I was a little bit nonplussed.  A little bit indifferent.  A little bit bored, to be quite honest.

I know, I know, I’m throwing myself under the bus.  I’m a damned fool.  Shouldn’t have let the cat out of the bag.  The barrage of negative e-mail and/or Facebook comments I will receive will cost me a healthy dose of my psyche and force me, in my later years, to believe I only enjoy films with Matthew Broderick in them relegating me to a life in my mid-80s, alone in a nursing home, watching and rewatching Godzilla and thinking about just how goddamned good it is.

On the flip side, The Goonies is one of my favorite movies, and I’ve known plenty of people who didn’t originally see The Goonies who eventually viewed it as adults based on its reputation as a cult classic (or is it just classic?), and just don’t “get it.”  How can you not like The Goonies?  The camaraderie, the adventure, the pirate ship, that little shriveled up old woman who always plays a gruff, unlikeable biddy!

Goonies and Ferris withstanding, the one film I, personally, have become absolutely obsessed with is Krull. The weird thing about loving the movie Krull is it isn’t even in the same league as Ferris Bueller and The Goonies.  Love ‘em or hate ‘em, seen ‘em or haven’t seen ‘em, if you are my age and have any semblance of pop culture knowledge, you have heard of ‘em.  However, I run in to people all the time who have never even heard of Krull.  To me this is disastrous.  An oversight of momentous proportions. 

Or maybe it’s just because Krull isn’t a very good film.  After all, that’s what I’ve been told, on many occasions.

My parents owned a lot of movies on VHS.  And a lot of them were crappy.  They owned Solarbabies for God’s sake! http://www.allrovi.com/movies/movie/solarbabies-v45500.

I would be hard pressed to say, growing up, I watched any 80s film more than Krull, Willow, or Return of the Jedi.  Well, we did also “own” a taped VHS copy of Ewoks: Battle for Endor which I watched repeatedly.  Fine piece of cinema, that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASiVgcna9UM.

But I still enjoy Krull when I watch it today….which is probably more than I can say of Battle for Endor, although I haven’t even attempted to watch it since that fateful day in 1987 when my parent’s VCR destroyed our copy.  A mournful day.  Soul wrenching, really. 

The one thing I love about Krull, next to the pure, unadulterated glee I get from watching it, is the borderline repulsive amount of memorabilia available.  There was a Marvel comic book tie-in.  There was a Krull card game, board game, a stand-up arcade game, a pinball machine and an Atari cartridge.  And, despite all those fine options, not a single, solitary action figure.

Wasn’t the action figure the reason to be a small, male child in the 80s?  If my friends were coming over and we were going to break out the board games, we were going to play Fantasy Forest http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4196/fantasy-forest or Crossbows and Catapults http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2129/crossbows-and-catapults.  Krull the board game is way too complicated.  I should know.  I own it.

Since Krull isn’t very popular, or maybe more apt to say unpopular, most of its memorabilia goes for a song and a package of off-brand beef jerky sticks on EBAY.  So I happen to own the card game, the board game, the soundtrack (ON VINYL!), and the comic book adaptation.

 Here’s the card game, fresh off EBAY, along with the two decks. 

I don’t know if you can tell from the pic, but those bad boys are still in their cellophane!  The seller didn’t even mention this in his description. If he had I’m sure he could have received way more than the $2.00 bid I ended up winning with.  Then again, Krull auctions aren’t exactly cutthroat.

My want to keep possibly the only remaining unopened deck of Krull: The Card Game in just that condition is always in a never ending struggle with my want to tear them asunder, to wield the glaive with a heretofore unknown veracity, to defeat The Beast, and to ravish Princess Lyssa, her red mane of curly locks spilling down over her pert, sensuous breasts while I wear the glaive around my neck as a symbol of vitality and victorious conqueror.

Or something like that.  I haven’t really given it to much thought.  Luckily I still have the board game to help play out my vicarious debaucheries.

 Prince Colwyn looks a little more smitten with the Glaive then he does Princess Lyssa, and she seems none too happy about it.  Here on Earth we refer to that as a scowl.  I’m fairly certain this must have some connotation about Colwyn's obsession with his own masculinity.  Those folks at Parker Brother never miss a chance to deal in underlying allusions.  I mean, have you ever really examined the front of Clue?  Simply rife with innuendo.

Also, in the bottom right corner, it mentions COLLECTIBLE 3-D Prince Colwyn and Beast figurines.  Titillating.

Damn that game board is colorful!  If you look, in each corner, there are painfully rendered scenes from the film.  The giant spider from their trip to the Widow of the Web, the Firemares, the……nebulous jellyfish characters…..I don’t know, maybe those are rocks…..

Here are those “collectible figurines.”

It’s hard to tell from the pic, but Colwyn is all hunched over, and he has his hand firmly attached to his chest.  You can barely even see he has the glaive in his hand.  Why isn’t he wielding it out to the side to make it obvious?  Instead he looks like he’s having a heart attack.  And he also looks 100% more like Bob Ross than he does an epic hero.  The Beast figurine is perfectly fine, although he, too, is holding his hands in an odd manner.  Rubbing his stomach, like he’s hungry.  Hungry for the flesh of the virgin princess, I’d wager.

They tried to incorporate everything they could from the movie in to the gameplay, but it’s somewhat of a confusing mess.  I guess if I played it on a regular basis I would become a little more familiar with the rules.  The problem with playing it more than once a year is, somewhat unsurprisingly, that it just isn't very much fun, unless you really like rolling dice ad nauseum, since everything is simply represented by a dice roll.  Fight a Slayer?  Roll the dice.  Fight a Changeling?  Roll the dice.  Need to look at a card?  Roll the dice.  I would have actually liked a Slayer (the Krull equivalent of Storm Troopers) at least painted somewhere on the board.  No luck. 

And damn is it “Glaive” heavy!  The game board?  The Glaive.  The point of the game?  Find the Glaive.  Prince Colwyn?  Limply brandishing the Glaive.  The name of the game should have been “The Glaive.”  Which is why, until I rewatched it a couple years ago, I thought the Glaive was actually named Krull.  No, no friends, the planet they are on is named Krull.  Put that piece of trivia deep in your subconscious mind, you never know when a pearl of such magnitude might be of some use to you. 

Here’s the secondary gameboard where Colwyn and the Beast “battle” for Lyssa in the Black Fortress.  Pretty damn colorful, being the Black Fortress and what not.    In a heavy gameplay twist you *gasp* roll dice and, based on the outcome of the regular six-sided die and the “battle” die, either you or the beast move, one agonizing space at a time, closer and closer to Lyssa, who is kinda’ haphazardly painted on the side like an afterthought.

I’ve only played this game twice in my life, but once your player gets to this point in the game, it’s weighed pretty heavily in favor of the hero.  Which is perfectly fine, I suppose, because no way in hell do you wanna’ draw this game out any longer than necessary.  Maybe the main problem is I’m playing a throwaway game designed 30 years ago for 13-year-old boys to try and cash in on a movie that turned out being completely unsuccessful.  Just maybe.

The felled Beast!  Honestly I just wanted to incorporate a picture with the Cyclops in it, because anybody who has watched Krull knows the Cyclops is, heads and tails, the best part of the film.

I can wax on and on about many a subject and, in some cases, it may be warranted.  Even though I still have breath to breathe in to the life of the Krull comic and, for that matter, the Krull movie, I think right now brevity might be a little more valorous.  Plus Jen has almost convinced me to open the card deck I have.  Something about how much could it ever really appreciate in value and whether that appreciated value would be worth more than the joy of playing it with my goodly wife.  I guess, considering some three decades after its release I purchased it for $2.00, unopened, even if it was to appreciate 1000% in the next three decades I wouldn’t exactly be rolling in money.  We shall see, I suppose, we shall see……

So, until I find a suitable time to waste more hours writing about Krull in the future, I live you with a clip of the film, the scene in which Horner’s grandiose “Ride of the Firemares” rises magnificently, just like the majestic steeds upon which the characters ride.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5G4puptHvo