The desperate battle Of My Kitchen Table.

 I collect things by accident. 

 I'll be out and about one day and just decide. "Ooh. That looks nice. I think I will buy it".   Then once I've bought one, I'll buy a second, then a third, fourth and tenth and start wondering where all my shelf space went to.

  That's how I ended up with three shelves of model kits, a shelf full of figurines and way more potted plants than you'd expect.  I may be suffering from sort of compulsive disorder. 

 So anyway, I bought some plastic Nubian warriors in Waterlooville models one time and then some how I ended up with...

 The isolation had me getting bored so I dug out my figures and decided to have a battle with them. 

So the scenario is this: At some point in the Old Kingdom of Egypt 1100BC ish, the Egyptians faced a worrying alliance of Sea Peoples and Libyans  In my version, the invaders were joined by some rogue Mycenaeans looking for plunder.;  Since I don't have any Egyptian troops - and believe me, that's on the shopping list - Pharoahs available forces comprise a hastily assembled array of mercenaries

  The two forces line up on the tablelands and prepare for battle. 

 Let's take a closer look., starting with the defenders. 

 

 In the centre are Pharoah's most solid troops. Bronze armoured Sherden. Kin to the Sea Peoples but willing to overlook dubious tribal allegainces for the sake of lots of gold. 

 On the left flank are the fierce warriors of Nubia. Sometimes enemies, sometimes willing to fight for Egypt.

  Lastly, on the right flank we have some...err..Zulus.

Presumably they got a bit lost.  

 Leading this motley crue array into battle is an exiled assyrian nobleman in his posh chariot.  (My other Assyrian chariots had a bit of accident and are sitting on my fridge waiting for some glue. Also on the shopping list.)  

  Moving over to the other side of the battlefield we have an alliance of  invaders spoiling for a good fight and the opportunity to jump up and down on the faces of Egypts snooty priests.

 On the left flank and the guys who suggested this whole party: the disciplined, heavily armed bravos of the Sea Peoples. (who are supposed to be the same scale as everybody else but are noticeably bigger because...reasons.)   Next to them are some Libyans that came along for a spot of  mischief.. Lastly, milling about on the right flank in an unruly mob are some roving Mycenaean Heroes and their warband. 

No doubt the battle will be fierce but who do you think will win?  

  

The Metal Project: Metal Direct To The Skull

 Evening all.  Welcome to another edition of the The Metal Project my ongoing and possibly Quixotic attempt to find and post every song on Youtube that has Metal in the title, or at least the ones that are by bands I can loosely categorise as "Metal".

  Once again I'm posting promo videos rather than songs but that still counts, right? 

As always, I hope you find something you like. Enjoy.  

Electron - Metal Direct To The Skull (Colombia 2020)

A modern band gleefully channeling the 80s in visuals and sound. 

Honour to: NWOTHM Full Albums

Steel Addiction - Metal Scream (Australia 2003)

Honour to: monsterrocks1

Delaware - Heavy Metal (Spain 2013)

 Honour to: Javiker73

Corrosive Sweden  - Metal (Sweden 2008)

 Honour to: Corrosive Sweden

Digressing for a moment, I continue to be fascinated by how many bands  not only put "Metal" in their title but also just use "Metal" or "Heavy Metal". This seems to be something unique to Metal.

Rampart - The Metal Code (Bulgaria 2016)

Honour to: RAMPART

Please visit and support the channels I linked above and help them keep doing what they do. 

That's All Folks. 

Terrible Metal Album Covers XXVII

I haven't done one of these in a while and since I have a few covers left to use, what the hell.

The objective is to demonstrate what can go wrong when the artistic vision of the band runs headfirst into the artistic ability of the artist and the result is a steaming pile of disaster, leaking fluids and the bitter stench of failure.

 Please note: Just because the cover is a badly drawn mess does not mean that the band suck.  Artists like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Helloween and Metal Church have all had utter catastrophes plastered on the front of their albums.

Now let's dive in.  

Achesete -Manicomio Sin Techo (Spain 2017)

What the fuck is wrong with his face? 

Why would anybody choose this mutation to represent their band?

Eezee - Matter Of Attitude (Australia 1993)

 The band tries to create their own mascot a la Vic Rattlehead and almost manage to pull it off.

Zephaniah - Stories From The Book of Metal (USA 2006)

Full marks for being ambitious but the end result is, to put it mildly, not pretty

Helloween - Pink Bubbles Go Ape (Germany 1991)

A well-respected band, a major label and a decent budget all combine to create this.

I honestly don't know what Helloween were trying to do, besides highlight how "Wacky" they were.
Good job, boys. Good job.



Impulse - Gladiator -  (Bulgaria 1989)



having a musclebound warrior on your cover worked well for Manowar.
Sadly this Bulgaran band decided their guy needed NHS Librarian specs.

And That's All folks
See you next time. 

Cheapo DVD Reviews: Jurassic Island (2019)

"Ten Years Ago" 
 Siblings Sara and Jake are leaving their favourite arcade when Jake turns back for one last game. His eye is caught by a brand new game.
 Meanwhile Sara is outside waiting for her brother...

Except he never shows up.

"Present day"
  Sara and her BFFS Rae and Chrissy have finally achieved their dream of opening their own retro arcade and are just installing the very last game when they notice something weird. The game is designed for 4 players but it looks like somebody is already signed in and he looks very familiar...

***********************************************

  I am clearly a total mark for a DVD cover with a dinosaur on it as I continue to buy them despite one shoddy CGI mess after another.  I also continue to be peeved by the ongoing tendency to use "Jurassic" as code for  "It has a T. Rex in it" when every small child could tell you that Tyrannosaurus Rex was strictly a Late Cretaceous kinda dude.

  As it turns out, this is not another attempt to rip of the Jurassic park Franchise.  As the blurb on the back will even tell you, this is about 3 friends trying to survive after being sucked into a game.  That would make it a knockoff of the Jumanji series.

  The original title and DVD cover is much closer to what this film is all about.

   Maybe they knew if there was a big dinosaur on the cover some schmuck was guaranteed to buy it.

   Moving on to the film itself, I should start by saying this is by The Asylum.   Expectations suitably adjusted.  

  Whereas Jumanji: Welcome to The Jungle was a hit because of it's talented cast, sterling character work, and expert blend of humour and, action, set to an entertaining storyline, the people behind this film clearly came away thinking the key was Karen Gillan in short shorts.

  Which is why our female lead looks like this:

Pretty blatant but I will admit to being perfectly OK with it.  

The next logical step would be to replace Dwayne Johnson, Chris Rock and Jack Black with suitable characters.

Or you could go "Fuckit" and have two more girls in shorts. Whatever. 

Still not blatant enough?

Moving on,

 The other thing you notice is that Rancala is actually a pretty rubbish game. 

  Our heroines wander about for a bit, encounter something dangerous which initially confuses them before defeating it with surprising ease. Repeat for the next level.  

  You will be pleased to know that there is at least one brief segment with a T. Rex. The rest of the time Sara, Rae and Chrisy are beating up white guys.- with one noticeable exception.

Oh look. It's a tornado that has sharks in it. Did I mention that this was made by The Asylum?  

  I will admit that somebody did try to have fun with the fight scenes. 

 It would have been nice if the fights had been better choreographed. Or done by people with some actual martial arts experience. Or had some interesting attacks like the ones you get in video games. What you get instead is some indifferent scrapping with videogame sound effects added.

 TBH the scariest part of this whole film is Bai Ling shows up  looking like she woke up in a skip after a Meth week and proceeds to chew the scenery like her life depended on it. 

 I'm not posting screenshots of that because I want the nightmares to stop. 

So after all that, is Jurassic Island any good?

  Well, for an Asylum knockoff this isn't too bad. The CGI is kept to a minimum which works out quite well, and although our heroines are obvious cliches who react like they've never played a video game in their lives Sara, Rae and Chrissy are easy to like. Normally in these things there's at least one person you want to get eaten but not here.  YMMV obviously. 

  I did find myself losing interest towards the end, mainly because the story was too thin to support the film all the way to the end. Luckily a final punchup wrapped everything up just in time. 

How much did I pay for this: £5

Was it worth it? Yes, with some reservations. Whoever decided to rename this to Jurassic island can fuck right off and there's some flaws with story, pacing, fight planning and overall lack of budget, but on the whole this DVD kept me mildly entertained. Expect little and you may be rewarded.  

 Friendship is Magic!