Star Wars: The Last Jedi Poster Card

I can't remember the last time I saw a Star Wars movie in the theater. I guess it was during the prequels - I probably saw Episode II but I might have missed Episode III. Okay, get mad at me. Whatever. I love Star Wars, and I love going to the theater, but sometimes things happen. I'm pretty sure I saw 3 in theaters, but by then I was kind of over the prequels. One had the best Anakin, Two had the best Padme, and Three had... um... clones?

And because 3.5 and 7 have come out since I moved to Japan, I've just been waiting to watch them at home. Going to the theater now is expensive, and it's difficult here to time it so you can see the movie in English. Usually big budget movies are dubbed into Japanese, but the first showing of the day at some theaters are in the original language with Japanese subtitles.

So that's how I saw the movie on Christmas Day, 2017. I met up with my friend and her son, and his cousins (on the father's side) for my first IMAX in forever. An early 10:00 start along with subtitles meant that there were very few people in the theater (besides, Christmas is not a holiday, so most adults were at work). 

I am going to say I enjoyed the movie. It was different from the original three and the prequels, and it wasn't perfect, but I'm far from dissatisfied. 

This card came free with an IMAX ticket - it's slightly larger than my scanner, making it a bit bigger than an A4 sheet of paper. That's why it's not quite lined up properly. My scanner clipped it a little, but there is an IMAX logo in the lower-left corner. I like this art style, and if I had all of the films with mini-posters like this it would make for a nice wall display somewhere.Maybe someday I can do something like that?

Looking on eBay, it seems that there is a set of four. I'm guessing that a different poster was available each week, based on some of the listings. I do know that everybody in my group got the same poster.

Can You Feel the Force?

There's a pun in that title. And no, it's not quite as obvious as you might think.

As Zippy Zappy and I were heading back to the train station, we stopped at a convenience store for some drinks for his ride home. I wasn't planning on buying anything, but then I saw these:

 Star Wars coffee cans with plastic lids! There's C-3PO, R2-D2, Yoda, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and a stormtrooper!

 Those plastic domes pop off the can so you can drink the coffee (I haven't tried it yet, by the way), but they also hold a secret.

Hidden inside each dome is a tiny figurine! I didn't want to take them out of their plastic wrappers, so I just pulled out Mr. Gold Robot here so you could see what it looks like. It's pretty small, about as tall as those old 7-11 Slurpee baseball discs I used to get as a kid. (Mmm. Slurpees.)

As you can see, I grabbed all six types, because I've learned that if you wait to buy any promotional item, it might be completely sold out by the very next day. There's a small paper insert with images of all six figurines;

There's not much detail to them - better than a 3D printer, but they're just molded plastic. I'm not complaining, though - unless the coffee sucks.

Until next time...

Moneyball! and cards!

Jim is a blog reader who's developed into a friend over the past year - he lives across the bay so we've found time to get together a few times. You'd remember him from this trade post.

We made plans and Thursday afternoon we screened the new Moneyball film. I thought it was excellent, and for the first time I can remember since American Beauty and Almost Famous I was able to sit through a drama without wondering when the film was going to end.

I'm sure you're familiar with the film if you're a regular reader of this blog - Brad Pitt's character (Billy Beane) hires Jonah Hill to bring his Bill James style of scouting to the Athletics. Drama ensues with a typical Hollywood "Brad Pitt's character is the good guy" ending. As I hinted above, it's a great film about baseball, not just a great baseball film. Jim noted there were women in the theater who probably wouldn't be found at a screening for Major League or The Natural. The setting is the 2002 Oakland A's season, from their loss in the ALDS to the Twins in 2001 through the playoffs. You can tell it's Oakland - the shots of the Oakland port and stadium guarantee that. The story is inspiring and moves quickly enough, with just the right amount of actual baseball included to make it fun for fans of baseball movies.

Speaking of which, how long has it been since we've had a real, good, baseball movie? The last I can recall is A League Of Their Own. Has it been that long? Am I forgetting something?

Billy Beane's character spits tobacco. A lot. I'm not sure if that was important to his character or not, but I certainly noticed it. Pitt does his usual good job of acting, but the surprising actor was Jonah Hill. There were several scenes that he pulled off that I wouldn't expect, most notably the trade scene during the turning point of the movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of my favorite actors, and he did a great job as Art Howe, though I noticed that he came off as quite a jerk during the whole thing, never wanting to listen to Beane's plans and just overall playing almost a villain in the film. At some point he must have come around to Beane's way of thinking, but after the trade scene mentioned above he just sort of falls from the story. Perhaps that was meant as a way of saying Beane made Howe's job meaningless after a discussion they had around that point in the film.

Now I can't judge how true to the characters and reality the movie is, nor how well it follows the book - I was out of baseball and the Bay Area in 2002, and the book isn't in my library yet (that will change eventually). However, factual or not, accurate or not, it's a great film that I will probably end up seeing again (something I don't say very often, especially with dramas). I give it four baseballs out of five.

Now, I mentioned cards in the title. So I suppose I need to hold true to that part of the deal. Jim and I grabbed lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. This was the first time I've been to BWW since leaving Atlanta, and man oh man, that wing sauce is AWESOME. Before eating, I gave Jim a nice Mike Schmidt I picked up a week ago:

I still owe him for the Sportscasters cards he brought me in June. Well, he said he had some stuff for me off my want list. He mentioned complete sets and junk wax, and I had an idea where he was going.

There were two factory set boxes in a bag that he handed to me as we said our goodbyes. One of them was for 2005 Topps, and I was about to chastise him for bringing me such a great item with nothing planned in return. He quickly brought me back to earth, when he mentioned and I saw that it contained this set:

Ah, 1990 Donruss. I actually like the design. Maybe it's the tiny, itty bitty part of me that appreciates that style of abstract paint-splatter art. I'd do something about the top part of the card, but I can ignore that. In typical junk wax fashion, I found nine players who amount to a net worth of about nine cents in the set.

The other set was in its proper box - the 1991 Donruss set. If you remember (how could you forget), the set came in two series, with each series being a different color. I prefer the green (blue was done to death with the 1988 Donruss set). I have a couple decent players in at the end, just for the fun of it.

Both sets came with the Rookies set, and 1990's included the puzzle!

Thanks a ton Jim, for a great time, and the cards! I've got some Chicles for you. A whole bunch of Chicles.