Interesting snack! Big chunky pretzel pieces that have a nice and toasty crunch. Comes in loads of tasty flavours too so it never gets dull. The jalapeno variety has a nice spicy kick to them.
Terry's Chocolate Orange Mini Eggs Bar
Little chocolate beans embedded in chocolate is a wonderful thing. You got Smarties bar, Cadbury Mini Eggs bar, M&Ms bar etc. and it can help with biting into the shell when it can be a bit hard. The experience feels like it's been perfected with this bar. It's a very pleasant munch.
KP Krunch Mix Sour Cream & Chive Flavour
Coated peanuts are great. The Walkers Sensations ones I find are the nicest and I miss when there was a Hunky Dory Buffalo variety. Here's one that's sour cream & chive flavour. It's a very strong flavour to begin with but you get used to it quickly and it's quite nice. It also includes little Hula Hoop and other shaped corn snacks so there's a nice bit of variety to snack on. Also comes in barbecue flavour I haven't tried yet.
Playing the Unofficial Cocaine Bear Game for the ZX Spectrum
Inspired by true events! This movie has been getting people excited online and now an author named Azimov made an unofficial fangame.
Lately one of my friends bought The Last of Us game to get ready for the TV adaptation that was coming out, so I thought I'd do the same with Cocaine Bear, which is coming out in the cinema.
This game doesn't seem to have any particular goal. You can just roam around, trying not to get killed while humans run around all freaked out. It has a top down view and 15 screens to explore. You can enter fury mode for a few seconds to mangle any humans that run into you. You use up white um... power packs as the readme calls it, so you only have so many of these. You can try and get the maximum possible score when you get bored exploring and use up all your power packs. That's about it.
It's pretty hard not to get killed. Even if your ear brushes off a cactus or the water you get killed. When you press a direction the bear just keeps moving and won't stop, even when going on to the next screen and right into danger. He's kind of like Pac-Man that way. It is fun owning the humans, but you can't get the ones that shoot because they stand still, and fury mode only works for humans that run into you.
I mapped the 15 screens out very roughly and it looks like the maximum points you can get is 6,300. I could be wrong though. It's assuming you can only get one pickup per game and the most humans you can mangle at once is 3. I managed to get 1,800 points as my personal best but with patience you can get much more.
It is quite satisfying mangling two humans at once and it's the best way to get a high score. You can mangle 3 humans at once at the very beginning, but it's tough enough to line them up!
The screens make up a maze at a nice seaside setting with lots of sand. The music is a happy little tune as well. Looking forward to the movie!
If you're using a ZX Spectrum Vega, here's a configuration I made for the game. Just paste the following into a text editor and save it as CocaBear.zxk:
T:Cocaine BearF:CocaBear.tap
M:128
K:;Q;A;O;P;SP;;1
D:;Up;Down;Left;Right;Fury Mode;;Start Game
Cast a Deadly Spell With Bootleg Friday
I found a snack I hadn't seen in a while, Fox's Rocky Caramel. Fox's make really nice chocolate biscuits I normally only see as Christmas presents but here is that same high quality biscuit only presented as an ordinary teatime biscuit for busy people in a multipack. the shortcake and chocolate are so good I feel like I'm getting away with something luxurious and the caramel is just the right amount. Not too much or too little, just right.
There is a chocolate variation but it has dissected coconut for some strange reason. It's awful and I'm surprised it isn't highlighted as an allergen.
With my caramel Rocky's, I was ready for the film. It's styled like a film noir detective story but it's main twist is that it involves magic powers as weapons. It sounds very strange and novel, a bit too strange to be mainstream. It was made by HBO, which is known for making its own stuff without the same restriction policies that others follow. My guess is that they wanted to make something with a taboo theme like the occult, but that's just a guess.
The font of the opening credits I recognised immediately as the exact same font from the credits of Fish Police, a fish themed detective noir cartoon made for older audiences in the early 90s. I was ready to spend the whole watch party making comparisons between that cartoon and this movie. In the opening scenes, there was a guy calling a lady "Angel", but that was about it. In any case, lovely font.
Despite having the magic theme, the detective story stuff is played super straight and doesn't feel like a parody or spoof at all. All the actors did a really good job of it.
One death happens from a paper tornado, but it looks sinister and fantastic rather than something too ridiculous and stupid like a shark tornado.
The weird monstrous gremlins and gargoyles make me imagine cartoon haters would decide the movie is for kids and then turn it off. They were cool though.
Then there's the femme fatale club singer and I'm thinking about Jessica Rabbit and Angel from Fish Police again. I love indulging in memories of those two, but the scene in this movie is well made and played straight, again not feeling like a parody.
The breakfast time in the diner looks absolutely lovely with its sun drenched lighting and booth seating. We Bootleggers and Beyonders find ourselves looking at the lighting in these old movies we watch with a lot of envy. We just don't get good lighting in movies these days. The monster in the kitchen was really cool too.
The blonde girl is delightful and has lovely lines like "lurking behind my mulberry bush".
One of my favourite things I said was when the gargoyle got kicked in the crotch and I said it got a "kick in the gargoyles". It was an amusing creature and at one point it was dancing around like a baseball mascot.
The ending was a satisfying conclusion when the bad guy got eaten up by the very thing he was summoning. Turns out his daughter saved the day by not being a virgin anymore. Woo! Serves him right.
So yeah this was a very interesting movie to check out and it's a lot less goofy than its premise suggests. Hardened detective noir fans get a bit of a treat with the fantastical aspects and special effects too.
Ant-Man 3 and Shamrock Shakes
I waited a long time for both of these things and I was glad they finally arrived. I started the day by rolling into the café by the bus station for scrambled egg, bacon and toast. I wasn't planning on that, but the signs and menu were pretty inviting.
The food wasn't bad at all and it came with little serving dishes of butter and ketchup without even having to ask them for it.
After this I went to visit Argos. I'm not sure if this'll be my last visit to the place, but I'm gonna miss it. I won't miss being asked for my e-mail address, but I'll miss being asked if I'm over 12 or 16 when buying games, which is funny.
McDonald's wasn't busy when I passed on the way to Argos, but it was hopping when I got back to it. I ordered a large Shamrock Shake with fries and a Grand Big Mac with bacon, minus the burger sauce, which is a nice thing about those kiosks. You can specify with the press of a button if you don't want something.
The Shamrock Shake is one of the nicest things about spring, along with spotting frogspawn and Pancake Tuesday. It's got a mild spearmint flavour and it only comes out for the run up to St. Patrick's Day, so it's worth going out for one now if you'd like one.
After that I went to the cinema. I got a ticket for the recliner screening and made sure it wasn't the 3D one because I don't like the glasses. The recliner seats are lovely where you can just press a button and it raises the foot rest and tilts the seat back. You can adjust it to your liking and there's a ton of leg room. I made sure not to sit in the front row this time. People walk in front of you when they're bringing their kids to the toilet and I get a bit self-conscious my legs in the air might be in their way. In the second row no one crossed in front of me.
I like to call this movie Ant-Man 3, because I don't like its whole title, "Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania". When you see it on a poster they have the Ant-Man part shrunk and the Quantumania part blown up.
Ant-Man is my favourite character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe(besides Spider-Man) because a lot of the time it's Paul Rudd walking around looking confused, which is how I feel most of the time when watching these films. I decided to get into them when I saw the first Ant-Man, which was great. Ant-Man 2 was pretty good too, much better than anyone said it was. For Ant-Man 3, I was gonna watch it even if people dumped on it because I just love Paul Rudd's characterisation as Scott Lang/Ant-Man so much.
I love the big/small gags, though there aren't many here. The pizza enlargement bit was pretty awesome and makes great food for thought as well. Scott's got a new book out called "Look Out For The Little Guy" which is a great title.
Scott's daughter now has a backstory of getting into trouble with the law like her dad and into science like his predecessor. The family get sucked into the quantum realm because of one of the things she was studying.
This quantum realm is where the vast majority of the movie takes place. There are some cool weird things about it, but most of it feels like something out of Star Wars. There's more alien stuff than there is microscopic cellular stuff, it's presented more like a different planet than it is about something really tiny. I kind of wish it was much weirder than it actually was.
The bad guy from the first film is here and I was really weirded out by the sight of him. He got turned into some kind of Humpty Dumpty figure with tiny arms and legs. His head is gigantic and his face looks like an image stretched sideways. After that initial shock I just kind of accepted it as one of the weird things about this setting.
Ant-Man is here with his family, but I always find myself wanting to see more of him. Everyone else has their role and they're all very important but most of them are narrative devices rather than thinking feeling beings.
I just took a look at the Ant-Man Twitter and it's only now I see the word "quANTuMANia" has "Ant" and "Man" in it. That flew right over my head. Wow.
Anyway, the bad guy is Kang and he's a pretty decent character! In fact all of the bad guys in recent MCU movies have been good. Kang is a powerful but soft spoken and menacing character. He's been destroying other incarnations of himself like Jet Li in The One and he's been banished to the quantum realm, looking for a way out through Ant-Man's abilities and access to technology.
Bill Murray plays one of the characters they meet. Normally I'm thrilled to see him in anything but he's just okay here. He drinks a weird drink with a creature in it.
Michael Douglas' character is as charming as ever and that army of ants that show up at his command was pretty cool.
Another cool thing is where Ant-Man gets to go all kaiju-big again, stomping around Kang's drab empirical city yelling for him. That was awesome.
There's also that bit where Ant-Man turns into an Ant-Man colony which is fun to watch.
The movie rolls along and has a happy ending, or does it? Scott pauses to think about possible consequences during his happy walk. He gets all serious before going back into happy mode. Charming fellow!
At the end of the movie, most of the people in the cinema left and the lights even came on before the credits ended. I always wonder if people know there's going to be post credit scenes for a Marvel movie. They really should know at this stage.
There are two post credit scenes and I was happy to see them, even though the lights came on. One of the scenes I later learned was a direct adaptation of a comic panel, which was cool.
After the movie I headed home. The movie met my expectations. Setting wasn't my favourite but I got to see more of Paul Rudd's Ant-Man, and the odd big/small joke kept me happy.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish at the Cinema with a Friend
I finally got a chance to see Puss in Boots: The Last Wish! I've been looking forward to this for ages. I love the character and I'm so happy to see him back. His debut in the Shrek movies was fantastic and his first spin-off was superb. When the new Avatar movie took up all the cinema screens I stayed at home and read about Puss in Boots. It's been doing very well in its own right and everyone's been praising its action scenes and in particular one showing a panic attack.
It was a lovely spring day and I met up with a friend. We went to McDonald's for breakfast but it was closed for some reason, so we went to another branch that wasn't too far away. After that we did some shopping. I picked up a lot of snacks I'll talk about soon and also got some curry Samyang noodles, a flavour I haven't seen in months. Glad I got some.
We went to CEX and found they were shrinking their DVD section by a lot. I hear they're phasing them out sadly.
When we went in to see the new Puss in Boots, there were quite a few people in there already, but still plenty of room for us to get good seats. Among the trailers was one for the new Mario movie and I can't wait for it!
This movie is presented in a couple of styles, the regular CGI style we normally associate with DreamWorks movies and the Spider-Verse style where frame rate is lower and the frames themselves are like paintings. I have a desperate lack of better terminology. Stop motion? The latter style is used for the movie's spectacular and satisfying action scenes. I love the way Puss cartwheels through the air and that fight with that earth giant thing in the opening reminds me of fight scenes from the anime FLCL.
Puss has lost eight of his nine lives and this brush with permanent death drives him to retire to a cat lady's home. He now wants to live a life of solitude from enemies and he grows a beard. He gets wind of a "falling star" treasure that grants wishes, so he sets off on a journey involving other characters who are after the same thing.
The panic attack scene really got people talking online and it got high praise for being one of the most authentic in movie history. Puss's heart races and his therapy dog friend Perrito places his chin on him, which helps him calm down. It's a wonderful moment in the cinema, but seeing the clip on social media with headphones, it was jaw-dropping. The sound of Puss' heart racing, his friend's muffled voice calling out to him, his heart then calming, then Antonio Banderas' deep voice thanking his friend gratefully. What a moment. Have a look for it.
The Shrek tradition of witty takes on traditional characters continues. My favourite here is Goldilocks and the Three Bears, who are portrayed as a family gang pulling off criminal capers. They're voiced by Florence Pugh, Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone and Samson Kayo and they have tough English gangster accents. I laughed in delight when they were introduced. There's Little Jack Horner, portrayed as Big Jack Horner, who has world domination plans. He's voiced by John Mulaney.
The Wolf character is like the Grim Reaper and he is designed extremely well. He's got these big red eyes and carries these threatening sickles around with him. He makes Puss' hairs go grey and stand on end. He whistles like Charles Bronson's harmonica tooting character in Once Upon a Time in the West. He's really cool.
We see returning characters like love interest Kitty Softpaws. One of my big questions was if we were going to see the Ohhh Cat again and we do! He's there for one brief scene doing his thing but it was nice to see him!
Puss and Kitty both do the cute eyes thing. No one in the cinema went "AWWW!" like they used to in previous movies. Maybe it's because we're used to these characters now? Or maybe it's because everyone has access to cute kitty compilation content now. Who knows.
The movie's plot plays out breezily and in such an agreeable way it can feel like a lovely afternoon pastime rather than something unforgettable, though there are some wonderful and spectacular things that are too cool to just forget. For example I can't remember the lyrics to the "favourite hero" song but I won't forget the fight scenes or the wolf character. I suspect this movie will be used by parents as a babysitter to kids but there are cool things they should hang on for a moment to enjoy too.
I hung around until after the credits and there was no scene, but there was a brief repeat audio of Puss saying the line "You're still here?" like he was Ferris Bueller and that was it. I take it for granted now, but Antonio Banderas as dashing Zorro-like Puss in Boots is a wonderful thing.
Afterwards we went looking at books, grabbed a burger, grabbed a bit of pizza and headed for home, humming the tune I still can't remember the lyrics to. I still had a bit of popcorn left but I eventually finished it that evening. The weather stayed nice.
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