Happy Halloween! October Belongs to Horror Recap

The playful 8 horror movie watching challenge from ...noir ends. The event gave finally some "excuses" to watch Finnish cult classic "Kuutamosonaatti" as well as new contender "Bodom" as well as some wacky zombie films "Dead Before Dawn" and "Dead Rising: Watchtower."

There were many other horror films that I planned to watch but October ends to soon. Partial blame is to Lou Ferrigno marathon in the beginning of October that went on a bit longer than expected. Well, those other scary flicks will be watched sooner or later anyways. For example these were left unwatched this time:

Now it is time to eat some Dracula-themed candies that I didn't know they were still manufacturing.

Shameless Pile Keeps on Growing: My New Furry Pals

It has been busy two weeks, and I haven't had much time to watch movies. So let's show some popular culture themed (or not) mascots and plushes that I have managed to find in thrift stores (except for Piggy) during the passing year.

Here's happy-looking Gingerbread Man from "Shrek."

Mr. Bean in pajamas, Blossom of The Powerpuff Girls, Ewok Wicket W. Warrick and Dora the Explorer.

There can never be too many Barbababas.

Here are some characters created by Finnish children's author Mauri Kunnas. Sleepwalking Mr. Hakkarainen and Martha from Doghill.

Spongebob Squarepands and Patrick seem to have fun.

On the other hand Asterix, Scotty and Elmo seem to have a small grudge.

Some gaming themed toys: Fruit Ninja- mascots, Angry Birds Piggy (movie version) and Wario.

And as a happy coincidence Sharky found his mother, Mommy Shark.

Clowns seem to be in fashion so here's Clown Smurf and Krusty the Clown.

And because it's Halloween here's also vampire Count Von Count.

Shameless Pile Keeps on Growing: Anttila Bankruptcy Sales

The Finnish department store chain Anttila (and Kodin Ykkönen that was related to it) went bankrupt in July 2016. It is sad because a big part of Finnish commercial history is lost forever and also several jobs. It was a good place to buy movies, electronics music and household goods. It is not the first time there is a clearance sale as Anttila closed its stores in Turku 2014, but reopened in May 2016 with new ownership. It did not survive much longer after that. Despite all the gloom, there have been good opportunities to make cheap finds from the clearance sale (again). My wallet hurts.

Here is some of my loot from the sales during the last two months. Not included here is the box of DVDs (including The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Extended Edition and a bunch of Finnish classic movies) that got stuck in the warehouse when the bankrupty was declared, although I got it later.

First some various items:

Slippers (no, my shoe size is not 44, but this size was the most comfortable), 6A and 20A fuses, Excellent Houseware lunch box with cooling element, Playmobil® Scientist with a hoverboard and a Playmobil® Knight with steel boxing gloves. Roll of Kodin Ykkönen stickers because why not.

DVDs:
TV shows, scifi, horror and some drama

Downton Abbey Complete Series with extras (I got some of the seasons already but this was cheaper than buying the rest individually) , Silicon Valley Seasons 1-2, Jouko Turkka's Kiimaiset Poliisit (Horny Policemen, not porn but a *very* unconventional cop show), Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul Season 1, Gotham Season 1, Lake Placid vs Anaconda, Poltergeist (remake), The Forest, The Revenant, Curve, Night Visions Scary Fun Box (Bad Biology, Stitches, Chop), Burning Wheels Box (Closer to the Edge, Bensaa suonissa a.k.a Gas in the Veins, Two-Lane Blacktop, The Doom Generation, Rubber), Outpost 37, Zoolander No. 2, Mika Kaurismäki's Tyttökuningas (The Girl King), Leviathan, Halo The Fall of Reach. 

Comedy, animations, action and more TV-shows:

The X-Files Event Series, Good Cop vs Bad Cop Box (Evidence, Verso, Saigon, Maniac Cop, Sinners and Saints), Strangerland, Straight Outta Compton, Michael Bay's 13 Hours The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Helix Season 2 (I don't have the first season), Get Santa, Hotel Transsylvania 2, Kung Fu Panda 3, Shaolin The Most Spectacular Live Kung Fu Show of the Year, stop-motion film Anomalisa, Ricki And the Flash, Ted 2, Shameless Seasons 1-3.

CDs:
Mainly heavy metal, schlager and old rock 'n' roll

Kaikkien aikojen tanssiorkesterit (Finnish dance bands & schlager music), Symhony X: Underworld, classic jazz Ella & Louis: The Complete Anthology, Progressive Rock Box Set, Nile: At the Gates of Sethu, Children of Bodom: I Worship Chaos, Holy Grail: Ride the Void, Hammerfall: (r)Evolution,
Martti Servo & Napander: Kestävällä pohjalla (Finnish humoristic schlager), Stig: Stig, Suomi Kantri (Finnish Country music), Re-Machined Tribute to Deep Purple's Machine Head, Fast & Furious 40 Cuts of Cool Cars, Crazy Cats & Cruising, Awolnation: Megalithic Symphony,
Shava: Langaton yhteys (Finnish Bhangra, really!), Halloween Music from the Dark Side (with Radiohead, Kate Bush and Talking Heads), The Best of Horror 75 Original Horror Favourites (lots of horror themed rock 'n' roll and novelty songs), Damien Rice: O, Volbeat: Seal the Deal & Let's Boogie, Kylie: The Abbey Road Sessions.

Shameless Pile Keeps on Growing: The cardboard box that you have is ideal for fooling your enemies.

DVDs in small cardboard-jackets tend to get lost in the shelves, so during the years I have collected them in a cardboard box. I have a total of 106 these (with Godsend twice). On the other hand this form of packaging saves a lot of shelf space but on the other hand I always fear that the flimsy covers do not protect the discs enough. As I can not remember which movies I had and in effort to avoid duplicates I wrote a checklist of these movies. See any favourites/recommendations here? Comment if you like.

My mystery box

Stack of DVDs in cardboard sleeves

1. 55 Days at Peking 
2. Act of Will
3. The Air I Breathe
4. Amazonia
5. American Psycho 2
6. Ameriikan raitti
7. Animal Factory
8. Assault on Precinct 13 (remake)
9. Babylon A.D.  (seen before)
10. Bandslam
11. Barely Legal
12. Battle of the Pacific
13. Battle of Warsaw
14. Big Stan
15. Boys Don't Cry
16. Bratz the Movie
17. A Bronx Tale
18. Buster Keaton shorts (Convict 13, High Sign, Daydreams)
19. Calibre. 45
20. Chaos Theory
21. Codename: The Cleaner
22. Creation
23. Crimes of the Heart
24. Dark Blue
25. Deuces Wild
26. The Devil's Brigade
27. Diamond Dogs
28. Diamond Girl
29. El Cid
30. The Faculty
31. Fisher-Price LittlePeople
32. Formosa Betrayed
33. The Four Feathers
34. Godsend 
35. Godsend
36. The Grand
37. The High School Conspiracy
38. Horsemen of the Apocalypse
39. Imagine Me and You
40. In-Laws
41. Joensuun Elli (seen before)
42. Just Friends
43. Kahlekuningas
44. L'affaire Farewell
45. L.A. Story (seen before)
46. Laukaus tehtaalla
47. Le premier jour du reste de ta vie
48. Littlest Pet Shop 1
49. Lovewrecked
50. Lupaus
51. Lost in Austen
52. Man About Town
53. Management
54. Mitt liv som hund
55. MLL 85v (short cartoons)
56. The Moguls
57. Morrhår & ärtor
58. The Mothman Prophecies (seen before)
59. Muriel's Wedding
60. Musketeer
61. My Life in Ruins
62. My One and Only
63. New in Town
64. No Retreat, No Surrender
65. Perrier's Bounty
66. Pertsa ja Kilu
67. Primary Colors
68. Quiet Flows the Don
69. Red
70. Riisuminen
71. Romanssi
72. A Secret Affair
73. Shenandoah
74. Sherlock Holmes: Murder by Decree
75. Sherlock Holmes: The Royal Scandal
76. Small Island
77. Sorority Row
78. Stay Cool
79. Stranger Than Fiction
80. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
81. Suburban Girl
82. Supercross
83. The Ten
84. Toiset tytöt
85. Unknown
86. Uppo-Nalle
87. Valkoinen kaupunki
88. Van the Man 2
89. Very Bad Things
90. Waiting
91. The Waiting Game
92. The Weather Man
93. The Wedding Date
94. Welcome to the Rileys
95. Wild Target
96. The Women
97. The Wonderland Murders
98. Yrrol


In a smaller box I have those cardboard covered films I have already watched:



Smaller box for already watched DVDs



99. 30 Days of Night
100. Churchill: The Hollywood Years
101. Curse of the Golden Flower
102. The Hitcher (remake)
103. The Last Legion
104. My Family and Other Animals
105. Red Scorpion
106. Robots

Shameless Pile Keeps on Growing: Suske en Wiske

Trip to a charity shop some time ago was very fruitful as I found a stack of one of my childhood's favourite comics Anu and Antti (original Dutch name Suske en Wiske, known in English as Luke and Lucy, Spike and Suzy or Willy and Wanda). In Finland it was published as mail-order comic in 1980s but the comic books were at that time often seen in second-hand bookshops. Drawn originally by Willy Wandersteen, the series is still popular in Belgium and Netherlands. However it is rather unknown in English speaking countries being shadowed by other comical adventure comics such as Tintin and Asterix.

It was a discount day so I got these for 1 € per piece.

 I should have sixteen more in my mother's basement. Someday I'm going to find them.

The main characters are temperamentical girl Anu (Wiske or Lucy/Suzy/Wanda/Bobette) and her orphaned friend Antti (Suske of Luke/Spike/Willy/Bob) who was adopted by Aunt Sanelma (Sidonia or Agatha) who is tall and thin. Their other friends are goofy middle-aged man Koikkalainen (Lambik or Ambrose/Orville) and prehistoric strongman Jeremias (Jerom or Jethro/Wilbur) who often solves the problems using his muscles. Professor Tietonen's (Barabas or Barnabas) inventions are useful but often cause trouble. He has space rockets, time machines and equipment for communicating with plants. Anu has a small doll Liisa (Schanulleke or Muffin/Molly/Sawdust) who is also an important character.

The stories have funny adventures with witty dialogue and some drama. During their adventures they have visited space and fought rebelling robots, saved an underground race of people made of copper, met ghosts who shoot bullets that turn people into ragdolls, and toy pirates made alive by magic varnish. In one of the stories monkeys turned intelligent and took over the world, why does it sound so familiar?

And because the nostalgia hit hard I also acquired this one:

Luke and Lucy: The Texas Rangers (original title Suske en Wiske: De Texas Rakkers)

Shameless Pile Keeps on Growing: Shinobi

Today's quick find deserves its own post. When I visited a charity shop I found some regular DVD:s and then this box of awesomeness:

The box had only words Shinobi Heart Under Blade written in Latin alphabets. After checking what was inside I decided to take a risk although there was no mention about English subtitles. After all the price was only 3.50€ and Shinobi means ninja so it was an instabuy.

The movie was "Shinobi: Heart Under Blade" (2005) and it got quite good reviews. It seems that the movie is more in the vein of Hong Kong wuxia dramas, and less Sho Kosugi or Michael Dudikoff. Somewhere it was described as Romeo & Juliet with ninjas.

There are four DVDs:
1. The movie and trailers for other films (the movie has English subtitles. However the menus are in Japanese so navigating the menus takes a bit of trial and error.)
2. Iga Clan Bonus Disc containing making of featurette, premiere featurette (without subtitles), cast interviews and deleted scene.
3. Kouga Clan Bonus Disc containing featurette about effects, another premiere featurette, storyboard comparison, featurette about ninja weapons, another featurette about special effects, location featurette, TV spots and trailers.
4. Heaven music video by Ayumi Hamasaki.

The DVD holder was also pretty:

There was a lot of stuff in the box, a book, flyers and a smaller box full of cool stuff:

The book had pictures of the characters, locations and background information (in Japanese of course):

The box contained cards with pictures of cool ninjas, pretty ninja-girls and some mysterious characters:

Then there was a ninja-pouch with some mysterious ninja-powder and rubber-shuriken with suction cups:

There was also Iga Ninja Clan lapel pin

T-shirt and Kouga Ninja lapel pin are missing but I can't really complain considering that the full Shinobi Limited Premium Edition costs over 100€ in teh internets. All in all a nice and surprising find.

After digging up some information about the film I found out that it is based on Futaro Yamada's novel "The Kouga Ninja Scrolls." It has nothing to do with Ninja Scroll anime or series but it is closely related to anime-series "Basilisk" as both of them are based on the same book. I have "Basilisk" on DVD also but I haven't watched it:

Shameless Pile Keeps on Growing: Never Gonna Give You Up

It has been a while since the last update on acquisitions. This time the focus is bit more on music.

First some animated movies:

Bionicle Mask of Light (Lego), Justice League animation episodes: Paradise Lost, Justice on Trial, Balto, Balto 2 Wolf Quest, Balto 3 Wings of Change, Winnie the Pooh: Share Your World, Winnie the Pooh:A Great Day of Discovery, A Very Merry Pooh Year, Flipper & Lopaka 1, Willy the Sparrow, Tabaluka episodes

Tintin et les oranges bleues, Tintin et le mystère de la Toison d'Or, Tintin et le lac aux requins,

Mill Creek: Giant 600 Cartoon Collection, 150 Cartoon Classics (Both had enough exclusive material to be justified. And the 150 cartoon box was cheap as soap)

10 Sci-Fi Movies (Being, Virus, Creator, Prototype, Def-Con 4, Sci-Fighters, Cyborg Cop, Cyborg Cop 2, TC 2000, Antibody), 10 Great Films Sci-Fi (Circuitry Man 2, Spontaneous Combustion, Blue Tornado, Def-Con 4, Invasion Earth, Project Shadowchaser III, Cyborg Cop, Cyborg Cop 2, Sleep Stalker, Moon 44), Cyborg Cop 3

Ed Wood Coffret (10 Ed Wood movies, note: this edition has non-removable French subtitles), Three Tamil movies starring Jayam Ravi: Daas, M Kumaram, Jayam, Action 1: Expert, Expect No Mercy, Death Ring, Gladiator, Gipsy Kings In Concert, Alice in Wonderland, A Good Man in Africa, Princess of Thieves, El bosque animado, Gui Si,

Mamma Mu och Kråkan 

Music CDs:

Synthesizer music (I had several of the Synthesizer Greatest on C-Cassettes, now updating those to CDs): Synthesizer Greatest The Classical Masterpieces, Synthesizer Greatest 1-5 (Starinc), 25 Greatest Synthesizer Hits (Gino Marinello), Synthesizer Spectacular Vol.  2 (Starinc)

Pop from 1980s-90s:

Jason Donovan: Ten Good Reasons, Kylie Minoque: Kylie, Rick Astley: Whenever You Need Somebody, Andy Kim: Baby I Love You Greatest Hits,Vanilla Ice: To The Extreme, Lighthouse Family: Postcards from Heaven, Seal: Best 1991-2004, Maxi Priest: Bonafide, Inner Circle: Reggae Dancer, Crash Test Dummies: God Shuffled His Feet, Scarlet: Naked, Paula Abdul: Spellbound, Paula Abdul: Greatest Hits, Anita Ward: Ring My Bell, Simply Red: Stars

TV and movie related music:

John McCook sings Bold and Beautiful Love Songs, Beautiful Dreams (Bold and Beautiful CD), Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me, The X-Files The Album, South Park Bigger Longer & Uncut, Xanadu, So I Married An Axe Murderer

More Soundtracks and various:

Beverly Hills Cop III, Twilight Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Twilight The Score, Disturbed: Indestructible, Annie: Anniemal, Suzi Quattro Original Hits, Pitbull: Planet Pit, My Country Vol. 1.

Rock and Metal:

Cardiant: Purge, Einherjer: Dragons Of The North, Graveworm: Scource Of Malice, Eternal Tears Of Sorrow: Children of The Dark Waters, Children Of Bodom: Relentless, Reckless Forever, The Sounds: Living In America, Von Hertzen Brothers: Stars Aligned, Apocalyptica: Worlds Collide, Kent: B-Sidor 95-00, Matchbox 20: Yourself Or  Someone Like You

This is getting quite long, so I'll save the rest for some future post: here are still couple of cool items

Snow White 50th Anniversary Happy Dwarf plush

Godzilla toy (13" Imperial Toho Co. 1985)

Shameless Pile Keeps on Growing: 270 Movies and Other Stuff

(Sorry about some bad pictures) 

It is again the time to report about the best findings from second-hands shops, post-Christmas sales or from teh Internets.

First the DVDs:

Nightmare 2 Painajainen jatkuu (teen horror spinoff of Finnish soap opera "Salatut Elämät"), Lovemilla movie, Mad Max Fury Road, Nylon Beat Fun Pack Tavastia Live + Nylon Beat Historiaa (Finnish girl band of the 1990-2000s), Gregorian Master of Chant Chapter III DVD, Entourage The Movie, Sword of Honor, The Big Wedding, Matchstick Men, The Little Cars 3 (Video Brinquedo production)

Dingo Productions cheapo animations:
Notredamen kellonsoittaja (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), Pocahontas (Legend of Pocahontas), Mulan, Leluelämää (Toys), Camelot, Dalmatialaiset (The Dalmatians), Hercules, Pikku Possu (Babe), Leijona eläinten kuningas (King of the Animals), Wabuu (Wabuu The Cheeky Raccoon), Balto 

Mill Creek collections:
B-Movie Blast 50 Movie Pack, The Nifty Fifties 50 Movie Pack, Family Holiday Film Collection 20 Movie Pack, Action Classics 100 Movie Pack (combination of Action Classics 50 Movie Pack & Suspense Classics 50 Movie Pack)

More cartoons (mostly Don Bluth) and Muppets
The Secret of NIMH, The Secret of NIMH 2 Timmy to the Rescue, Tom Sawyer, Prancer, It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, The Great Muppet Caper, Muppets from Space, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Elmo in Grouchland, Kermit's Swamp Years 

Breakout Kings Season 1 (was Season 2 ever published on DVD?), American Horror Story Season 2, (I don't have the other seasons), Blondie 10 Movie Collection*, Ma & Pa Kettle Complete Comedy Collection 

*

Soundtrack CDs:
Braveheart, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, The Bodyguard, Tarzan (Disney), Mob Life 16 Great Tracks From The Films Of Martin Scorsese, High School Musical 1,2 & 3. 

Then the books  (mostly scifi and pulp):

Hey, this is useful for getting a crash course in Marvel's characters:

Marvel Avengers (Sankarit ja Viholliset Kaikenkattava hahmo-opas (Marvel The Avengers: The Ultimate Character Guide) 

Rock Brynner: Yul: The Man Who Would Be King, Steven Spielberg: Kolmannen asteen yhteys (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Alan Dean Foster: Mustan Lordin paluu (Splinter of the Mind's Eye: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker), George Lucas: Tähtien sota (Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker), Michael A. Stackpole: (Star Wars) I, Jedi, Jerry Cotton 3 Liian nuori kuolemaan (Nicht zu jung zu sterben), Jerry Cotton 11 Operaatio kivikasvo (Ein Toter kam nach Holywood), Simon Hawke: Star Trek TNG Kunnian hehku (Blaze of Glory)