The Harrison Ford “Rick Deckard” hero blaster from Blade Runner, predicted to draw bids between $100,000 and $150,000, was among the 1,100 pieces of Hollywood memorabilia auctioned by Profiles in History April 30 and May 1, 2009. Ford’s hero blaster nabbed a winning bid of $270,000 to top the items at the auction. That’s considerably higher than the pre-auction estimate.
Found at SyFy’s Blastr site. Clickable image.
About once a year, we break out the “Die Hard” series DVDs with Bruce Willis and watch them. We were watching the original “Die Hard” from 1988. At one point in the film, this scene briefly flashed on the screen. Gas for about six bits a gallon only 22 years ago! I stopped the player and wound it back to let The Better Half take a photo.
I just read in the Southern California rag that passes for a newspaper that gas prices in this area are approaching the peak price from earlier in the year and may surpass that amount. We were out and about today and saw the prices at the local stations ranged from about $3.02 to $3.19.
California’s emission and taxing are about as insane as their gun regulations, so you might expect the figures to be a little less in other states. In Arizona, the price is about twenty-five cents less than in California, which is why we fill the tank near the border on the AZ side. We’re still burning gas we bought last week in AZ, but we will need to gas up here soon.
We have had Charlie Wilson’s War in our DVD collection for a couple of years at least. After the former Congressman’s recent death, the Better Half and I decided to watch the flick one more time. Sort of like a tribute, I guess, but more for our entertainment since we think it is an excellent film without too much left wing Hollywood crap in it.
In the flick, Tom Hanks plays the role of Charlie, a good ol’ boy politics playing Texas Congressman who gets transformed into a crusader against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Julia Roberts plays a role not unlike Kay Huchison, an activist anti communist socialite who prods Charlie into his eventual “war.” Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the gruff and profane CIA agent who acts as a catalyst in the transformation.
There was a sequence near the end of the flick, while Charlie Wilson is standing on the balcony with Gust Avrakotos during a party celebrating the defeat of the Soviet army in Afghanistan, Gust warns Charlie of future problems if he and the other members of Congress do not follow up on giving economic aid to the Afghani’s. As Gust finished this warning, Charlie thinks about what he said, and you hear an airliner flying over Washington DC. It is an obvious, ominous reference to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
As I indicated before, it is very entertaining, has lots of weapons, guns, blowing shit up, doesn’t try and make a twisted political statement and ends on a reminder of where we now live in the age of Islamic terrorism.
I rate Charlie Wilson’s War a quarter star short of five, holding back just because it was directed by the ultra-liberal Mike Nichols.
We’re seldom disappointed with action flix in which Jason Statham is featured. Action thriller “Death Race” is no exception. It features a plethora of exotic firearms and vehicles in a sci-fi saga with almost continuous action and intrigue.
Early in the action, Jensen Ames (Statham) is framed for the murder of his wife. Soon afterwards, he finds himself in “Terminal Island,” a prison from which a bizarre internet broadcast originates, featuring inmates participating in an armed and mechanized “Death Race.” The rest of the story is about Ames posing as Frankenstein, a legendary, but dead, inmate whose legacy the prison’s warden (a bitch you will truly want to kill) wants to perpetuate.
The eye candy in this movie is rich with highly-modified rolling stock, classic machine guns and ordinance, lots of shit blowing up and gratuitous gore and sex. It is a perfect means to vicariously relieve yourselves of the everyday tensions of life.
The following list of featured weapons and vehicles comes from the IMFDB “Death Race” page:
- DsHK Heavy Machine Gun
- M4 Carbine
- MP5
- G36
- Steyr AUG
- Beretta M9
- Sawed off Double Barrel Shotgun
- M60
- Taser
- Cars
- “The Monster” 2006 Ford Mustang GT
- 2004 Dodge RAM 4WD
- 1966 Buick Riviera
- 1980 Porsche 911
- 1989 Jaguar XJS
- 2006 Chrysler 300C
- “The Dreadnought”
- Pontiac Trans AM
- BMW E32
Be sure and click on the link to the IMFDB website featuring photos and details about the guns and cars in “Death Race” - you won’t be sorry. We give this flick a solid five out of five star rating.
Image credit, The Better Half, who stopped the action to capture the shot above from the big screen.
Flick Review: Gran Torino
Starring: Clint Eastwood
Plot:
Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran and retired auto worker, deals with family, immigrant neighbors, gangs and his own haunting memories of the war. Walt sets out to reform his neighbor, a young Hmong teenager, who tried to steal his prized possession: a 1972 Ford Gran Torino.
Best dialog exchange:
Father Janovich: Why didn’t you call the police?
Walt: Well, I prayed and no one showed up.
This is an excellent feature. Kowalski’s curmudgeon behavior is priceless - Eastwood executed the role perfectly. Walt Kowalski is an American patriot and gun owner not afraid to defend himself and other innocent people.
The plot moves along in dramatic scenes and is animated when it comes to sequences where firearms are involved. Be sure and visit IMFDB’s Gran Torino Firearms review page - there are plenty of photos and descriptions of firearms used in the production.
We give it 5 out of 5 stars.
Team Obama - Coming soon to a White House near you.
An intense drama about the inside track to the dirtiest politics of Chicago and the administration that grew out of that muck. A gripping story unfolds to expose the stark underbellies of the slimy characters at the heart of the 44th Presidency.
They’re all here - the preacher of hatred, Jeremiah “Goddamn America” Wright, the unrepentant terrorist, William “Guilty as hell, free as a bird” Ayers, the dirty deal-maker, Rahm “Send fish to your enemies” Emanuel and last, but certainly not least, corrupt governor and perpetrator of the worst hairstyle ever, Rod “What am I bid” Blagojevich. They’re all connected to one another and to the very heart of the next administration.
Perhaps the most disturbing consequence of this intense thriller is the fact that it’s not actually fiction. It’s like waking up out of a dream into the same nightmare - over and over - you will not sleep well knowing that. Pray that there will be no sequel to this - ever.
(Graphic courtesy The Patriot Post)
We put this classic in the DVD player the other night, for the nth time. In spite of having seen this flick many times, we enjoyed it just as much and heard and saw things we had either forgotten or missed. One example is the sequence when a blustering Faro dealer (Billy Bob Thornton) is reduced to a simpering blob (Thornton was still chubby back then) by Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russel) and Doc Holiday (Val Kilmer). The comic banter between the characters was much funnier than I remember.
The following lines, in context, were very humorous:
Of course, most of the flick was devoted to reviving those times and events with authentic costumes, props and, naturally, firearms.
Tombstone is one of our all time favorites. On a scale of sucks, bad, weird, so-so, good, very good, excellent, outstanding and sensational, we rated this one outstanding.
Feeling in a nostalgic mood last night, I popped “The Gauntlet” in the DVD player. This is a 1977 Eastwood flick, made while he was married to the very forgettable what’s her name. All of that aside, it was a pretty action-packed flick with lots of gratuitous blowing-shit-up and more shots fired than I can recall seeing for a long time (except for maybe the first 15 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan” another recently-viewed flick).
According to IMFDB, these are some of the guns seen in the flick:
There were a lot of other guns in the flick, both long and short, that I couldn’t positively identify.
The plot was a thin one, but for an action flick, who really needs much of a plot?
Anyhow, Shockley (Eastwood) played a boozy, has been police detective who has the task of transporting a whore from Vegas to Phoenix. This whore (what’s her name) was to be a witness in a hearing that would implicate the police commissioner with the mob. Thinking Shockley would screw up and fail to bring the witness, he was assigned the job by the commissioner.
The rest was a poetic cacophony of shooting, explosions, helicopters, motor cycle gangs, the whore’s exposed cupcakes, double crossing lawyers and a grand finale when an armor-reinforced bus crashes on the steps of the civic center with a million bullet holes in it.
Very satisfying.
| Daybreak: | 06:26 |
| Sunrise: | 07:21 |
| Transit: | 12:45 |
| Sunset: | 18:08 |
| Nightfall: | 19:03 |
| Daylight (H:M): | 10:46 |
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