discs and Bowen

hello there

i have, as this text stands testament to (or at least as i write it), survived the great time space continuum shift that saw all of us across the UK leap forward an hour in the early hours of the morning. travelling forward in time is a pretty peculiar thing, really. if we all did it, as we did, then no one did is the only true statement i can think to put here which is mildly profound, look you see.

what did i do with my own time travel exploits? mostly weekly grocery shopping, as it happens, although i did make something of a departure to non-grocery shopping. what did i purchase? shiny things, mostly. well, presumably there are shiny things inside the boxes.

but the headline, i am guessing kind of gave this away some.

yes it is true that usually i would only purchase a DVD for £1 if it was Poundland, or world, offering it for that price. i made an exception today, however, as the store that offered these for £1 each has the name 'Yorkshire' as part of their trading name. so if they want me to have these discs for that price then it was meant to be, thanks.

what was the logic behind these purchases? nothing too intelligent, but at points maybe it has something to do with insight and thoughtfulness. links to follow, but as is the case with book reviews, the links are for convenience, and not endorsement, affiliation or suggestion.

on a very base, basic and straightforward level, that set of episodes of The Outer Limits was purchased as it promises a blend of sex and science fiction. nice one, man. i think that the TV show itself was always something of a "poor man's Twilight Zone", i really don't remember it. sex and sexy things tend not to happen on UK release discs, so i am keen to see what this has on offer. if it's anything really exciting, i will be sure to make a reference to it here. as and when i get to watch it.

X Files coming up, but first, someone has very kindly sent me a picture of that most legendary of vehicles, the Jim Bowen tribute car.

yes, a Jim Bowen tribute speedboat or caravan would be more apt, but this is somewhat more of a practical and accessible tribute to the great man. yes, i know that you can see the tribute element, but no, we are not discussing that now. just be patient, or scroll down.

i bought The X Files - Nothing Important Happened Today partially as the title has for some reason been popping in my mind of late, but mostly as it has a purple box. i do not think i have seen a purple box before, and my (considerably) better half likes both purple and all this X Files stuff.

is this X Files episode any good? not sure, i don't remember. i mean, i have the whole lot of it in box sets sat away in storage, not watched for ages. i do know that it stars Agent T1000 out of Wayne's World, which upsets some people. 
 

and so, then, Psych Out. basically, what the proprietor of the shop was saying, albeit via tacit means by having it on the shelf, was "dear customer, would you like to throw £1 at this item which holds within it the promise of Jack Nicholson being whacked on acid for 90 minutes?". the answer could not be anything other than "yes, thank you very much, i will give you £1 in return for the chance to see that".

cor, blimey! i see that, at time of going to print, amazon are flogging this disc for £30 new or nearly £19 used. if i had known then i may well have stocked up. but it depends how much demand there is for it out there.

i have not heard of this film before. quite strange that this one somehow slipped by me. i mean, i have heard of The Trip, but just about everyone has.same with Performance, i suppose. and it's not like this film is under the radar because it is bad or rubbish - in their infinite, collective wisdom, users of that whole imdb thing have given this an average review of 6.0, which is pretty good going.

yes, i appreciate that Dean Stockwell is in it too. the idea of watching him whacked out of it on acid is also, to me, exciting, but then again i have already seen Blue Velvet. many times.

did i buy anything else that was also a disc but not available for £1/ yes i did.

James has discovered all of this WWE / WWF business, and so when i saw a film available that had the king of all that stuff in it, Hulk Hogan, i thought i had better get it. the certificate on it suggests that it is not for his eyes just yet, but i will have a gander and see if this isn't just usual UK censors getting carried away.
 

what, exactly, is this No Holds Barred film?  a slice of cinematic history, apparently, as it rewrites history. the claim is that this motion picture, from 1989, marks the film debut of Hulk Hogan. this is interesting as he was in fact in the class, bonzer film Rocky III, playing the pivotal role of Thunderlips. which was released some 7 years before this one. oh.

also, it seems that this film is a "classic" in a very "cult" sense, according to what the back of the blu-ray box says.

what's the film about? as far as i can work out, mostly it would seem to be about Hulk Hogan being Hulk Hogan, doing all sorts of smart and class Hulk Hogan things, predominantly limited to boss wrestling moves. except he is not actually Hulk Hogan, he plays a character that is a bit like him that has the name Rip.

i am trying to remember if i have ever watched any Hulk Hogan adventure in motion picture beyond Rocky III and i think the answer is no, except for the fact that i think he was in one of the Muppets movies at some stage in his illustrious career. i will probably have watched that at some point, then. i will have a bit of a watch of it at some point, although i would be fairly sure i could give you a pretty good review right now, really, as i am guessing that the Hulkster, or Hulkamania, wins out in the end, what with him being an all real American and that.

David Paymer, one of the few actors to survive the calamitous trainwreck of a film called Amistad, is in this one too. he plays someone called Unger, which sounds like an amazing name, man. 

yeah, go on then, back to the sensational Jim Bowen tribute car.

the presence of a statue of Jim Bowen on the dashboard, dressed in traditional Bullseye attire and apparently throwing a dart, is what of course makes this vehicle the tribute that it is.

many might be baffled by the emphasis on white clothing for a Bowen tribute. the man was, is, and always will be, after all, best remembered for his outrageous, convention defying and generation defining combination of many, many colours in his day to day attire.

the white is used here to symbolise not so much a level of purity - although the Bowen is pure - but rather a level of clarity of focus not usually seen in hosts of tv gameshows based, for the most part, on the sport of hobby of darts. where others tried and fell short, Bowen of course flourished and thrived, which is why he is so celebrated and tribute vehicles like this exist.

i don't, as those of you who have endured my tales of bus rides are aware, use a car on a regular basis anymore. and i am very happy about that. if, however, i decided to return to using a car on a frequent basis, i believe that yes, i would drive around in one of these Bowen tribute ones.

that will do, then. hope you all had a most smart weekend!




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!