Thursday, September 29, 2011

Toy Recon: 2011 Skystriker and GI Joe-compatible toys

I'm thankful to my friend Darlene who gave me a Motorola V8 with a usable cam. Makes these toy recon trips easier.

I was going through the toy section of Landmark Dept. Store, looking for GI Joes or Transformers or anything that could be of interest. I found this on a high shelf:

After the fiasco that is GI Joe: Rise of Cobra, I would have thought that retailers would be a little paranoid in getting GI Joe merchandise. Well, they are, because they are really limiting what they are getting to sell. But I have to ask, why did they get a big ticket item (Php2,200+) like the Skystriker? I mean, sure, it is iconic and collectors my age might get them. But after presumably suffering loss and remaindering the rest of their RoC stock, would they gamble on a big vehicle? Why not Pursuit of Cobra figures? Why not smaller vehicles? I may want one of those things but lack of money and, more importantly, lack of space keeps me from getting this.


But I did find other things of interest. GI Joe collectors are always on the lookout for toys that would be compatible with 3.75 inch figures like GI Joes. Mostly they are the military set toys made by Chap Mei (Soldier Force V) and Power Team Elite. Toys R Us's True Heroes line also looked good to me, though I've yet to procure one of their "Little Bird" helicopter gunships. That said, I was surprised to find this:

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

'Exorcist' director William Friedkin should read comics

I came across this article this morning, and it made me sad and angry at the state our world is in.

Yahoo News: 'Exorcist' director slams trend for comic book stories

Perhaps Friedkin wants more intellectual movies made, and more people to appreciate them. But seriously, I fail to see how his movie Killer Joe, the story of "a drug dealer who hires a cop moonlighting as an assassin to murder his mother to collect on an insurance policy that will pay off his debts, and sells his sister as a sexual retainer" as "adult." Okay, I'll grant that it is "adult" in the same sense that pornographic films are