Tag Archives: Review

Toy Review – LG40 Astrotrain

February 7, 2017 Big Angry Trev Leave a comment

Astrotrain – truly a mainstay of the Decepticons in fiction since he first turned up in the G1 cartoon waaay back in 1985. And why not – he is a Giant Robot that turns into a Space Shuttle and a Train! I’m sorry but things don’t get much cooler than that! Despite being immensely popular in the cartoon and there rarely having been a G1 comic in the last decade that hasn’t featured him extensively (always the troop transport aren’t ya, ya poor bugger! To think back in the cartoon you became god of a moon!) Astrotrain has received very few toys over the years. I suppose it’s not the easiest to design, a train and shuttle in one. But now we have one again and he is a Headmaster no less! So let’s get on with the review of the Legends series LG40 Astrotrain!

Please note: Legends Astrotrain is a tweaking of Titans Return Sentinel Prime so I will be making several references. For my review of TR Sentinel Prime please read HERE.

Space Shuttle Mode

Quite flat but certainly a nicely shaped shuttle. There are several options as to where you can place the guns, either on the sides or on the top (I go for the sides personally). Astrotrain’s Headmaster can sit in either the little cockpit at the back between the tailfins or can sit in one of the gun turrets on the side. Despite the great Tak/Tom colour scheme designed to make him look a lot like the G1 cartoon, he still looks a little bland in this mode. However they have at least coloured the windows of the cockpit, something that the Sentinel Prime figure was sorely lacking and from photos I’ve seen the TR version of Astrotrain suffers from this as well.

*Surely one of them will make it to Cybertron*

Train Mode

It’s a damn weird train! Looks like a Cybertronian train of some kind because I don’t think we have trains like this on earth, even in Japan. Like the shuttle version, the train’s windows have added colour here in order to highlight them and the gun ports on the top of the train have been coloured differently to the section (Astrotrains robot arms) that they protrude from. That and the overall colour scheme make this a far superior looking train to Sentinel Prime who looked like a bright red and orange stick. Given you can now make out the train wheels and the trains cabin, it really gives a sense of scale to the toy, that this is a big-arse Cybertronian transport!

*A **JNR Class D51 Steam Locomotive from 1936**. A **Tsubame 800 Bullet Train from 2004**. Does that mean we will see the new Astrotrain on the tracks in Japan around the year 2090?*

Robot Mode

What a butch looking Astrotrain! In fact I think probably the best looking official Astrotrain toy we have ever had! No chest boobs and static arms like the G1 toy, no giant back fins like the Timelines version and he certainly stands quite literally head and shoulders above the Classics version. Good articulation on all extremities, nicely poseable and a good paint job. I like how both his hand guns can join together to become one long rifle much like the G1 toy was sporting. He is of course a Headmaster and his Headmaster partner (whose name is actually Head Master – no points for originality there) can come off and be replaced with any other Headmaster. A great gimmick for little kids and my son loves it, but for myself as a grown up fan I just want Astrotrain himself.

*Sentinel is a reminder to Astrotrain to always wear sunscreen*

Overall

This is a great Astrotrain! Yes the shuttle mode is a tiny bit flat and bland and the train mode is a bit alien in appearance but taken as a whole all three modes work and work well. We needed a Voyager-sized Astrotrain for the Generations lineup and he makes a great buddy for Blitzwing. The Tak/Tom version with the cartoon-homaging paintjob puts this toy far beyond the Titans Return version in my opinion and I heartily recommend this figure to all fans of great characters who get stuck carrying their mates around all day. This guy will definitely make it to Cybertron!

*I gotta catch a train. I gotta catch’em all!*

Transformer Toy Reviews

Toy Review – Rescue Bots Quickshadow

January 25, 2017 Big Angry Trev Leave a comment

Femmebots, the slang term for female Transformers, are becoming more commonplace but are still for the most part a rarity – you can count how many get released each year without taking off your socks. Rescue Bots has been the longest running single Transformers cartoon show in history and they have finally introduced a female Autobot into their admittedly rather small ensemble. Quickshadow is a very cool character, coming across as a highly competent, British-sounding spy. Being a sportscar that turns into a female robot makes Quickshadow sound like a James Bond wet dream come to life and for those of us that like to collect female Transformers sounded like a new toy to look forward to collecting.

Unfortunately what we got is perhaps one of the worst quality Transformer toys we’ve had in years.

*Don’t open me up – I’ll just break your heart*

However let’s start with a few positives.

Vehicle mode

A very sexy little sportscar. There is some nice detailing in the grill with the little Autobot symbol and the blue highlights on the hood, doors and hubcaps certainly pep up what would otherwise be a bland colour scheme of white and grey. Smaller than the other Rescuebots, even Blurr looks bigger.

Robot Mode

Not bad, but quite blocky. Of course this is to be expected since it is a Rescue Bots toy. However on the TV show all the other characters look quite blocky but Quickshadow is very lithe and agile looking so it is a shame they did not go to at least some effort to represent that here. Also a little more detail in the face would have been nice as well, perhaps a more defined mouth or something to show she has optics behind the big eye mask. Scale-wise she is comparable to Blurr however is smaller than all the older Rescuebots such as Energize Heatwave.

*“Why is it on the show I look like you Arcee, but in real life I look like Margaret Thatcher’s even more butch cousin?”*

Transformation.

Here is where it being a Rescue Bot is supposed to be the big seller for young TF fans but in Quickshadows case it’s the main reason not to buy this toy. There is only one thing you need to do to transform her, that being pull the front wheels out sideways – then everything is supposed to pop into place. But she jams. In fact she jams nearly every single time! And you can’t just push the wheels back in and try again. At first I thought my son was using her wrong. Then I thought we just must have gotten a dud. But a subsequent look at various ratings of the toy on Amazon and eBay has shown that this seems to be an endemic fault with the figure. There is a little spring at the top of the car’s hood which is supposed to facilitate this transformation but the spring constantly jams and to un-jam it you have to pull the hood down so hard you are certain it is going to snap. In fact I’m afraid to transform her again in case it does! This is a shameful flaw – only one moving part and they f*ck it up!? Poor form Playskool & Hasbro – poor form indeed.

*Your Quickshadow toy is going to spend more time looking like this than a robot or car*

Worth Getting?

No. She costs the same as the older Rescue Bot figures despite being nearly half the size and the jamming spring means that the toy is almost unusable from the get-go. I’m glad to have another Femmebot in my collection but I would say this is a contender for the worst quality Transformer I have ever come across.

Have you got this figure? Will you still get this figure after reading this review? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

Random Reviews

Art Book review: Deadpool – Drawing the Merc with a Mouth

January 23, 2017 Big Angry Trev Leave a comment

When backpacking around Europe I visited many of the world’s great art galleries. I went to The National Gallery in London and saw Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. I went to the Louvre in Paris and saw the Mona Lisa. I went to the the Museo del Prado in Madrid and had my mind turned inside out by the works of Dali. Hell, I even went to a museum in Amsterdam which seemed to house all the concrete willy’s that had been knocked off all the Italian statues during the rise of Puritism. From great galleries to the gaudy, from museums to mausoleums I’ve seen it all. So who better to take you through the latest collection of artwork to be released for the public’s perusal –Deadpool: Drawing the Merc with a Mouth

This book showcases over 20 years of Marvel Comics Art centered around everyone’s favorite degenerate assassin. When I first purchased it I thought it would be nothing but pictures but the book is actually broken up into 7 main chapters (along with an opening and a conclusion) which details the creation of Deadpool and his evolution as a character both plot-wise and artistically. There are various interviews with the people who have written Deadpool over the last 20+ years and there were some nice insights into how he was created, his surge in popularity and the very odd direction that the character was taken in.

But of course this is primarily an art book so we are treated to lots of eye candy throughout. This in itself shows the evolution of Deadpool, from a guest-starring bad guy on the front cover of early 90’s comics to the present day where he has had more ongoing titles, spin-offs and team ups than one can count.

I think what I enjoyed best here was the way that the artists could use such a ridiculous and self-lampooning character such as Deadpool to in turn lampoon other genres. From famous works of art to album covers to movie posters to even the comic covers of other super heroes (including those of DC) Deadpool brings his smart-arse style.

There is not much more I can say here as, since it is an art book, you really need to view the art rather than read someones opinion of it. But what I can do is advise you whether it is worth getting. I picked this up in a bookstore for $65(AU) and the cheapest I’ve seen it online is $56(AU) including postage. It’s a pretty hefty price tag. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I got it and I really enjoy it, but I did have a pang of buyer’s remorse walking out of the store until I had a chance to get to grips with it at home. To justify such an expense one needs to really be a fan of the Merc with a Mouth. Luckily for me I am one and if you love him too (and have the cash to spare) you will really enjoy this artistic look at a few decades of Deadpool.

Meaty Goodness!

Meat Review – Cactus Jam in Warrnambool

January 16, 2017 Big Angry Trev Leave a comment

When it comes to cooking, various cultures seem to have the patents on different styles. The French have their light-on-the-stomach-yet-sinfully-rich cusine. The Germans are masters of wrapping up huge hunks of quadruped in cabbage and roasting the hell out of it. The Mexicans… well…. what you can usually say about Mexican food is that it’s fun to eat!

I like Mexican food, having an almost Deadpool’esque love of the food. I’ve never actually been to Mexico so I’ve always had to deal with other countries interpretations of their food. All the Mexican restaurants I tried in Melbourne were distinctly average. In fact the only really good Mexican restaurant I’ve been to was in Edinburgh, Scotland. Since that was over a decade ago I’ve been really hankering to have good Mexican again, so was eager to try the food at Cactus Jam in Warrnambool.

What’s the best way to sum up the food at Cactus Jam? Oh yeah – you could cook it better at home! I’m a decent cook so I expect when I go to a restaurant that, since they are professionals, they should cook better than I. I’m always disappointed when I walk away from a meal thinking ‘I could have cooked that’ or even worse ‘I could have cooked that much better!’.

In Australia we get a glut of American television and it seems to be a recurring joke on sitcoms that most restaurants, be they Italian, French or whatever that they actually have a bunch of Mexicans working in the kitchen. Well, Cactus Jam could have used a few actual Mexicans in their kitchen cooking the actual Mexican food. Like the German Hofbrauhaus in Melbourne, I don’t think anyone of that nationality has ever stepped foot in the place (for my review of that restaurant – see HERE).

I tried the Carne Con Chile Colarado. I love Chili Con Carne but never get to cook it at home anymore as the rest of the family isn’t keen on it, so was looking forward to bowl of restaurant quality tucker. What I got tasted exactly like those Stagg Chili cans you buy for 3 bucks at Coles. And I mean exactly! Which means either you are getting brilliant value at Coles or else Cactus Jam did a shit job. Because it was Colarado-style (which meant essentially a US-bastardized version of Mexican food) there were no beans in it at all, and though the beef was supposed to be slow-cooked, it didn’t taste anything special. I’ve made better, and I’m sure with minimal effort you could too.

*Believe it or not – this is the meal, not the diarrhea of the previous customer though the taste equates to the same.*

My wife got the Chicken and Beef Fajitas. At least these came with two types of meat and lots of different side foods and sauces to apply so they were fun to make. That’s about it for all the positives you can say about it. Much like the their Chili tasting like a can of Stagg, these tasted like the chefs just grabbed a bunch of Old El Paso packs from the supermarket and took their cues from there. You could make these at home no sweat and probably better than Cactus Jam did.

*Mexican Flag* equals authentic *Mexican Food*… apparently.

Mexican Beers

At least the restaurant seemed to have a few authentic Mexican beers on the drinks list, even if they seemed to pick the shittiest ones. Mexican beer is like Mexican food, it doesn’t have a stellar reputation but it is possible to get good stuff. I tried the Cave Creek Chili Beer. I’ve had Chili Beer before (to see me drinking it along with 15 different Hot Sauces see my video HERE) and know it’s not the tastiest but decided to give this a go as it had an actual chili floating in it which I thought was very cool!

Worst. Beer. Ever! I mean it – it was quite literally worst beer I have ever drunk in my life! It was filthy! It made the Dos Equis Larger I had next (a decidedly average beer) taste like manna from heaven in comparison.

So worth going to Cactus Jam?

No. No its not. The food is crap, you could cook better at home or at the very least make food its equal out of a can or pack. They have Mexican beers but seemed to stock up on all the shittiest ones. The only thing you could say about the place is that you don’t have to do the dishes – but I don’t think that warrants the expensive price tag. Mexican? More like Mexican’t! Heh – I wonder if I’m the first person to think of that pun? Probably not but I’m proud of it!

Eaten there and have a different opinion? Tell us in the comments below.

Random Reviews

Tourist Spot Review – Cheeseworld

January 15, 2017 Big Angry Trev Leave a comment

Multiverse theory states that if it is possible for a world to exist then somewhere it must exist. That there are many parallel universes to our own, consisting of worlds different than that on which we live.

Consider Cheeseworld – a world comprised entirely of cheese. What would we find there? Would the moon indeed be made of cheese? Would the Earth be made out of a Hard Dry Jack for the various cheese creatures to walk and graze upon. Imagine if you will herds of majestic Goat and Yak cheeses grazing under the Peppercon cheddar trees by a flowing river of Runny Blue.

Would the people there have the different nationalities that we have? Would there be the Swiss Cheese people? Would the American Cheese people be policing the rest of Cheeseworld? Would the Regal Blend which is headed by the Red Windsor stand proud in the nation of Aged English Cheddar?

Would people worship the great Gouda in the sky?

I set out in search of the mythical Cheeseworld, the entrance to which was rumored to be found at the end of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia. My thoughts chased themselves in circles and my hands visibly shook at the idea of finding an inter-dimensional portal through which I may enter this world of cheese and explore a strange and alien new land.

Instead I found a tourist stop in Allansford consisting of a café, cheese shop and little museum.

No cheese people. Not even people dressed up as cheese characters! No Tommy Nooka from the Mighty Boosh with his cheese head or Montgomery Jack from Rescue Rangers. The walls are made of brick instead of brie. I come to the sad conclusion that this will not be a grand adventure into the unknown but decide to make the best of it.

Cheeseworld consists of a café, which has distinctly average food (though the Cheeseworld Cheeseburger is excellent – read the review HERE). Next to this is a little shop area which has one isle of cheese related products such as cheese boards and cheese slicers but the rest is made up of the usual touristy crap they sell people from overseas on coach tours. Behind this is the proper cheese area. There is a tasting bar with 5 types of cheese on offer and a fridge along the back row with quite a decent selection of cheeses to choose from. My wife stopped my purchasing of the Buffalo’s Milk Cheese but I did get away with purchasing some Wild Wasabi Cheese which has a real bite and goes well with beer. We also picked up some of the Warrnambool Heritage Creamy Colby that had been damn nice from the tasting area as well as Lochard Camembert. They also sold a lot of foods that go well with cheese such as kabana, various German sausages and of course wine.

Behind Cheeseworld is the Cheese Museum. Some of the equipment showed how they made cheese in the days of yesteryear while a lot of the other stuff was just the same as I have out behind my shed – old farming tools they had salvaged and put up on the wall.

So is Cheeseworld worth visiting?

Look, it aint great. The café is pretty crap and for a place called Cheeseworld you would expect something… well… more cheesy (but in a good way). Most vineyards put on a better show and I don’t know of any that call themselves Wineworld. But if you are driving along the Great Ocean Road or, like us, having a little holiday in close-by Warrnambool then it’s a distraction for half an hour.

Meaty Goodness!

Burger Review #3: The Cheeseworld Cheeseburger

January 14, 2017 Big Angry Trev Leave a comment

One could reasonably expect that a place that names themselves ‘Cheeseworld’ would be capable of a decent Cheeseburger. Otherwise they have no business naming themselves as such – rather they should name themselves ‘Mediocreworld’ or ‘Processeddairyworld’ or something.

Luckily for them, Cheeseworld won’t have to rename itself any time soon.

This was a pretty damn tasty cheeseburger! In fact perhaps the best cheeseburger I have ever eaten! It was quite simplistic but then I believe part of its flavor came from its simplicity, much the way a pizza you eat in actual Italy with only a few toppings tastes so much better than one you have in Aus. You know, with 50 different toppings with their competing flavors overwhelming the taste-buds. The Cheeseworld Cheeseburger consisted of a juicy, thick brown beef patty complimented with a combination of thick, creamy mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato relish (though I opted out of that – good on them for actually letting customers modify their burger) and some soft fresh buns. But what made this a brilliant cheeseburger was indeed the cheese.

Above the patty was a slice of cheese whilst just below it was grated cheese. Both different varieties of Coon (for our overseas readers that is the name of a cheese brand here in Australia – yes I know they should change it but overseas comedians have a great time with the concept every time they visit here. Just watch the last half dozen appearances of Stephen K Amos on Spicks’n’Specks [another name that could use a more politically correct moniker]). And it was these two cheeses, both very slightly melted from the beef patty, that made this burger great. The whole thing was tasty, flavorful, had excellent texture and with a side of chips was reasonably priced. Not the fanciest cheeseburger on the planet but certainly the tastiest I have sampled – well done!

Whilst on the subject of the Cheeseworld café menu, let’s look at the opposite end. They had home-made large pies on the menu but dissapointingly were sold out so I tried their ‘Home-made Beef & Pork steamed Dim Sims’. These looked great; huge and plump and a bargain at $1.80 each. I ordered 3 thinking the family could share them – my wife and son like beef well enough but my daughter, who is not yet two, has developed a taste for pork that rivals my own!

*Smelled like encased animal droppings – tasted about the same.*

How can I sum up these Dim Sims? Worst. Dimmies. Ever! Absolutely disgusting! It was like they had accidentally knocked half a jar of raw cumin into the mix and hadn’t noticed. My wife tried a bite and gave me almost the exact same response my brother-in-law did when I was trying the 1.5kg pork challenge at Hofbrauhaus a few months ago: ‘No, that’s disgusting! Don’t eat that – you’ll be sick!’ A buck eighty a piece and I still felt ripped off, so awful that even when I subsequently covered them with soy sauce I couldn’t even finish one.

So, when travelling along the Great Ocean Road, if you happen to stop at Cheeseworld I heartily recommend the Cheeseworld Cheeseburger. I don’t recommend the Dimmies unless you enjoy something that tastes like buckshot mixed with entrails.

Transformer Toy Reviews

Toy Review – Combiner Wars Liokaiser

November 23, 2016 Big Angry Trev Leave a comment

Just when you think the Combiner Wars toyline is dead, they keep chugging along with even more obscure subgroups. This time they have given us a character that you may be unfamiliar with unless you watched the Japanese G1 cartoon series Victory back in the 1980’s. A group originally named Breastforce (no I’m not making that up and yes, you are allowed to giggle) has been reborn as the Destrons (the JP name for Decepticons in general) who combine into an almighty gestalt! So here we go, a big review for a name as long as some of the old Street Fighter games, Combiner Wars Liokaiser: Platinum Edition!

Please note: As all these toy molds have had numerous iterations already, I will be mainly talking about any changes made rather than going over old ground. I will put in links to other reviews of these molds as appropriate.

Ironbison

Doesn't fear Autobots as much as PETA — *Doesn’t fear Autobots as much as PETA*

Renamed from Killbison as it sounded like he was related to the Bufflekill’s from The Simpsons. Here we see the usual CW Brawl (for a review of Brawl – see HERE) remold but with added horns on his head to represent the original toy/character. I found the limbs on mine to be a bit loose, very hard to pose him without the shoulders sagging. But the mustard and silver colour scheme work together and he looks nice and tough.

Drillhorn

Probably the only limb figure here whose updated alt-mode doesn’t look as cool as the original one. This has been remolded from CW Nosecone and they probably would have done better to use the UW Nosecone mode (for a comparison between those two toys – see HERE). Also the drill bit does not fit in the gap properly with mine which is quite annoying, I have to use the double-barreled rifle on top to keep it in place. A nice little touch is a horn that pops out of his forehead in robot mode which adds that extra unique touch.

Guyhawk

Did this guy pick his ultra-masculine name to make up for his colour scheme? The most pink in a Transformer I’ve seen this side of G1 Sparkstalker! But the colour actually seems to work quite well, it’s very vibrant indeed! Nice head sculpt, the only one of the limb characters that doesn’t require pop-out bits. Remade from CW Air Raid.

Fellbat

I'm a bat out of... er.... fell? Yeah, I'm a bat that fell I guess. — *I’m a bat out of… er…. fell? Yeah, I’m a bat that fell I guess.*

Renamed from Hellbat because, well…. pretty crappy reasons actually because Hellbat was a much cooler name. Remade from CW Skydive, this guy has his signature little bat-wing fins that pop out of the sides of his head and is one of the few characters from Victory I can remember from my one watching of the series. Already killed off in the IDW comics which is a shame, hope that doesn’t stop Liokaiser showing up there. A nice touch in jet mode is they have given his missiles a striking red paint job.

Dezarus

Ok, here is where it gets a bit trippy, follow me if you can. The original Breastforce (again, insert requisite giggle) had two characters that made up the torso – Leozack and Jallguar. Since all CW gestalts (excepting CW Devastator) are mainly four smaller bots as limbs and a larger single one as the torso, these two characters were dumped for Dezarus. Dezarus is in turn based on Deathsaurus who was the leader of the Destron army in the Victory cartoon. To add further confusion, since Deathsaurus’ had a bipedal bird-monster alt-mode, they chose to recolour CW Sky Lynx (for a review of Sky Lynx – see HERE) to make him.

Keeping up? Well done! Because I’m writing this bloody review and even I’m getting lost!

Anyway, Dezarus here has the same modes as Sky Lynx (rather than his original ones) and his colour scheme makes the shuttle mode look a bit odd. One thing I was pretty happy with though was how easily the toy lent itself to being put in a bipedal position, even achieving a certain limited poseability! Yes it’s a stretch, but it’s the closest you are going to get Dezarus to Deathsaurus that you can.

Ion Scythe

Another weird but welcome inclusion, put in mainly I suspect to keep up the now set pattern of all these CW groups having six members. Ion Scythe is based on an old Arms Micron toy and despite his name turns not into a scythe but a sword. The original Breastforce group (ok, you’ve had your laughs, time to get over it now) had little animal partners so it could be Ion Scythe’s inclusion is a shout out to that.

Liokaiser

The head from Sky Reign (find the review of Sky Reign HERE) has been retooled to look more like the original Liokaiser and both share the animalistic helmet. There are plenty more tricks you can do to make this toy look more G1 Victory accurate. These include positioning Fellbats wings up and horizontal, placing Fellbat and Guyhawks grey guns either side of the right fist and turning Ironbison and Drillhorn outwards so that their treads face inwards. All these little things help, the only problem is rotating the lower legs means he can’t use his knees, but that’s easy to turn back when you want to do some action poses. It really is a nice looking combiner overall with plenty of poseability and mismatching-yet-working colours. Ironically Ion Scythe is far more suited to be a CW hand weapon than the likes of CW Powerglide and CW Shockwave (for a review of Shockwave – see HERE) who both were too heavy and pulled down their gestalts arms – Ion Scythe seems to be just the right size and weight!

Worth Getting?

Overall I would have to say yes. These are characters that haven’t had new toys since they first appeared in Victory nearly 30 years ago. I would advise shopping around; I got mine for a good price whereas if I had ordered it through my usual international source I would have paid about $50 more. And for those who have Masterpiece Star Saber – that big fragger now has someone to fight!

Transformer Toy Reviews

Toy Review – Masterpiece Thrust

November 13, 2016 Big Angry Trev Leave a comment

Oh Tak/Tom, why do you not want me to pay off my house? Why do you keep releasing these overly-priced MP exclusives that I just have to have? Shame on you! If I was a stronger man I would resist, but since I’m not and have caved yet again, I may as well share with the public my thoughts on your latest attempt to empty my wallet – Masterpiece Thrust.

Robot Mode

I have thighs - I promise! — *I have thighs – I promise!*

Thrust looks quite nice here, the expression is a tad blank but the face is a nice white colour and the eyes are yellow just like in the cartoon. The body has cartoon accurate colours too, though one could ask is this a good thing? In the cartoon Thrust’s colours were more muted and pale then the toy, the toy being a more rich maroon verging on brown with black highlights and in the cartoon he was a reddy-brown with grey. The idea of the Masterpiece line is to make these toys show accurate rather than toy accurate, which means that sometimes we miss out on the great features of the toy (for instance Tracks flying car mode was cooler in the toy than the cartoon but the MP we got looks like the cartoon). Thrusts knee pads are a bit too big and obscure his thighs, making him look more stubby than he really is but he does have his tail wings coming out of his calves and the main wings angle all make the legs and torso work. Despite some quibbles that are all relatively minor this is a pretty damn fine looking Thrust!

Vehicle Mode

The theoretical F15-VTOL mode Thrust was based on has been faithfully represented here. Once again one must wonder if the colour scheme would have looked better if they had gone with the toy than the cartoon but it’s really hard not to love the MP Seeker mold – in my opinion the best looking jets of the entire Transformers line ever! A very nice little touch they have put in is that his wing turbines actually rotate, though one has to do it via finger rather than being able to blow on it like some other TF toys. Thrust here has all the features the other MP Seekers have such as the nosecone and cockpit that open. A couple of extras are the guns that sit under the wings and for once they seem to have gotten the pilot right – it being a translucent hologram character rather than a half-sucked Simpsons-jelly baby like came with Sunstorm.

Transformation

*The seedy underbelly of weapons placement*

Most people that have been collecting the MP Seekers know how to do this and it’s certainly not the most onerous MP transformation ever. I tend to use the instructions the first time round though just to give myself a refresher – given how much these latest Seekers have cost one does NOT want an accidental breakage! A change they have made here from some of the other Seeker toys such as Ramjet is the configuration for the guns when converting to jet mode. The guns instead of swinging out on two big struts under the wings now fold down and sideways on double jointed smaller struts to sit flush with the side of the jet whilst two removable guns are placed under the wings.

So is Thrust worth getting?

For the exorbitant price tag I’d say unless you are a mad TF collector then no. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great robot and a brilliant jet, but because of the toys exclusive status they have ramped up the price to a level that is verging on the rip-off side. But if you ARE a mad TF collector like me then he is a must have. Can’t wait to get Thundercracker and Dirge so my MP Seeker collection can be complete!

Random Reviews

Live Show Review: An Evening With Henry Rollins

September 28, 2016 Big Angry Trev Leave a comment

The Show: An Evening With Henry Rollins

The Performer: Henry Rollins (funny that)

The Venue: Arts Centre, Melbourne

Date: September 19, 2016

Last week I once again had the privilege of watching the aging alternative icon live. This is the third time in the last 10 years I have been able to see Henry Rollins do his spoken word show in person. In fact if you ever get the chance to watch the ‘Henry Rollins Provoked: Live from Melbourne’ DVD you can listen to me during the credits raving about how the show was 3 ½ hours long and I wish it had been even longer! Or else that snippet of my fanboy gushing is on youtube at the 4.45 mark HERE.

The performance this year was at the State Theater in Melbourne, a huge room that fits just over 2000 and indeed it was completely packed out. It was interesting to see the rest of the crowd, I think the majority were in their thirties and forties with a smattering of fans in their twenties and a healthy dose of the 50+ range.

Rollins was his usual self. For an 8pm start he hit the stage at 8.05 (and I think the only reason he waited 5 minutes was for the latecomers to be seated) and as soon as he picked up the mike the mouth started going and didn’t stop for 2 ½ hours (good value for a 2 hour show eh!) with big dollops of sweat dropping from his left elbow illuminated in the spotlights. As usual he started off talking about some of the local issues, in particular how despite his extensive vocabulary he had to look up the word ‘plebiscite’ and then proceeded give voice to what many Aussies at this time are thinking “Really? Spending 160 MILLION DOLLARS on a question that in this century should be a complete no-brainer?”

I’ve noticed over the years that Rollins talks less and less about his showbiz days and more and more about his travels to different countries and this show was no different. In fact the two showbiz stories he did tell I had heard before (about being on a plane with Motorhead and when he had lunch with David Bowie) but it was nice to hear them again and let’s face it, it’s hard to do new material for fans that obsessively watch every second of stage time you perform whenever another fans loads it on youtube.

I was a bit afraid that this show may go the way of the second live show I had seen him perform, which had been great as always but had almost verged on being a bit too preachy in telling people how they should travel more (I’d love to Mr. Rollins, truly I would. However I have a wife, kids and a mortgage that sadly I have to support with a day job which precludes me from taking off to Nepal on a whim). But no, while there were lots of travel stories they were funny, entertaining and I can’t get the image out of my head of Rollins listening to Iggy Pop while half buried in snow at the South Pole, fecal-covered penguins rutting like mad not 5 feet away.

The rest of the show was talking about how various old ideas society holds need to either reworked or thrown out which lead into discussions about his family (I had heard a lot about his family on different spoken word CD’s but even I learned some things about the man’s life I didn’t know before) and various other topics. He often talked about the hate emails he gets for not hating particular groups like LGBIT’s and various ethnic groups and being told to get out of the county, sadly a trend that seems to be cropping up on our once ‘most friendly nation on earth’ continent as well. One thing both I and my mate Matt who came with me noted was that Rollins did not swear once. I mean – not one time! Now he has never been particularly prolific with his penchant for profanity but neither have I heard him shy away from using f*ck, sh*t, a**hole and the like when emphasizing a point or when a sentence could benefit from it. But not one swear here, in fact when giving examples of what people say about his President he would utter sentences like “Oh the President is a BEEP BEEP BEEP”. Yes, he actually said BEEP. I don’t know whether the lack of his usual mild obscenities was due to being in such a classy place like the State Theatre or whether this is par for the course for him now that he has reached the respectable age of 55. Could it perhaps be a result of his vegetarianism? His first spoken word CD I ever listened to a looong time ago to had plenty of curse words whilst talking about eating in Russia and mocking the vegetarians for the crappy food they were about to receive (“C’mon Veggie boy – eat your shit, you non-warrior pussy!”) and how he was looking forward to his big hunk of meat. Now he eats no meat at all and uses BEEP in a sentence. There may be no correlation there but I do wonder. Meat and swearing and now neither swearing nor meat…. hmmm… this requires study. I best start rounding up a large enough pool of test subjects to examine this hypothesis.

Anyway, once again Henry Rollins provided a great show. As said, he went a good half hour over time which means you were getting even better value for money. He was intelligent, insightful, witty, funny and was able to entertain the crowd discussing a diverse range of subject matter. So if An Evening with Henry Rollins sounds good to you (and I know a few female friends who certainly wouldn’t mind) try to catch a show before he heads back overseas – if you miss him this time then I encourage you to catch him on his next Aussie tour.

Random Reviews

Movie Review: Sausage Party

September 16, 2016 Big Angry Trev 1 Comment

Some movies make you laugh. Some movies move you to tears. Some movies dazzle you with fast paced action and brilliant special effects.

And sometimes you come across that movie that makes you walk out of the cinema with your brain slowly dribbling out of your ear saying “What the bloody hell did I just watch?!?”

If you like that kind of movie, then you will love Sausage Party.

*Looks a hell of a lot more innocent than it is!*

This movie is not for everyone. In fact I will say it is probably not for most people. Old people? Nope. Sensitive people? Nope. Normal people? Nope. Underage people? Oh dear god no – you’ll traumatize them for life!

This movie is really designed around the concept of “The kind of messed-up jokes you make to your mates when no one else is around”. You know, all the really wrong stuff that would make someone avoid you for life or get you arrested but you could say to a close mate so you could both laugh at how wrong simply saying such a thing is in the first place. This movie is full of racist stereotypes (jars of sauerkraut going to ‘kill the juice’, falafel that thinks it is going to get 72 virgin olive oils etc), foul language (the c-bomb gets dropped 5 minutes in), drug use (everything from a twinkie getting stonned to a guy shooting up bath crystals on his couch) and just really, really wrong stuff (a used condom talking with fresh semen dripping from its mouth, corn kernels on a human shit moaning like ghosts). The protagonist is a hot dog that has come to question the after-store myths that everyone is lead to believe and the nemesis of the movie is a douche that sticks itself up a clerks arse then uses the clerks scrotum to steer his actions. That’s about it for plot. This is definitely a movie where the writing staff, baked out of their brains no doubt, decided when pitching ideas “Oh yeah, that is soooo f*cked up! Let’s put it in!”

That’s not to say it is a bad movie. I enjoyed it well enough and it appealed to the part of me that used to watch the likes of South Park religiously. I can’t say I ever actually laughed out loud, more had lots of ‘Holy shit!’ moments when something even more disturbing than what happened before came along. And the end scene with every bit of food, no matter its gender or use-by-date, just f*cking the living shit out of every other bit of food was so madly messed up I just sat there with my hands over my mouth going ‘Oh Jesus Christ!’.

I really don’t know whether to recommend this movie or not. But if you want to challenge your own moral code to see just what you can withstand, then it’s a way to kill a couple of hours.

Big Angry Trev!

Tag Archives: Review

Toy Review – LG40 Astrotrain

Toy Review – Rescue Bots Quickshadow

Art Book review: Deadpool – Drawing the Merc with a Mouth

Meat Review – Cactus Jam in Warrnambool

Tourist Spot Review – Cheeseworld

Burger Review #3: The Cheeseworld Cheeseburger

Toy Review – Combiner Wars Liokaiser

Toy Review – Masterpiece Thrust

Live Show Review: An Evening With Henry Rollins

Movie Review: Sausage Party

Join the Trevolution!