Labyrinth Playing Cards

I did tell you to tune your crystal ball in to see the next deck of cards and that was sort of a clue as to what it might be.

Labyrinth has been one of my favorite movies since it came out. Both the movie and the soundtrack have gotten a lot of play over the years. Back in the dial-up days of Bulletin Board Systems, I adopted Jareth as my first online handle.

There is so much to love with this deck! First, they used the riddle door guards Ralph (red) and Alph (blue) as the Jokers. What better choice is there?

Second, Hearts/Diamonds are yellow with Spades/Clubs being purple. I really like this because it makes the cards more interesting when you're holding a hand. Not surprisingly, the card images are all stills/promo images from the movie.

The court cards in every suit are the Labyrinth (Ace), Jareth (King, naturally!), Sarah (Queen, of course), and back to Jareth (Jack). He's also on the 10 in every suit.

Another fun thing they did was use Ludo on the 4s and the Fireys on the 3s. Here you can see what I mean about having two different colors of cards.

Whoever you're favorite character might be from the movie, they're probably on at least one card in the deck. Sir Didymus? The Wiseman? The worm? They're all here.

So if you ever accidentally wish away your baby brother and need to play a game of cards to get him back, this is your deck! You can find them at Entertainment Earth.

Dr Strange Playing Cards

Thanks to Entertainment Earth having a BOGO 40% off sale on Aquarius stuff, I got two new decks of cards! Sadly, most of their Star Wars cards are out of stock, including this really cool one, but the ones I got are pretty great.

Doctor Strange is probably my favorite Marvel character. Before I really got into comics as a teen, I had a pair of pocket sized collections of his earliest adventures and that's really where my love for him got it start. I read those things so many times! I even kept a notebook of all the spells/incantations he used. Nerd alert!

I would have picked these up no matter which era of Dr. Strange they focused on but they lean more toward the early 70s stuff. Would I have preferred more classic Ditko art or art that covered the span of Strange's appearances? Sure, but this era is classic for me. I would have done something different for the Jokers, maybe had one of the Eye of Agamotto cards be closed or the Seal of the Vishanti which is the symbol on the large window in his Sanctum Sanctorum.

They use an assortment of comic covers, comic panels, and portraits of Strange. Some panels include his long time foes Baron Mordo or Dormammu. No Nightmare or Mindless Ones though, what up with that?

Okay, who out there is good at math? In this 52 card deck, there are 25 different pieces of art used. How did they manage that, you ask? Not only do they repeat art between suits, they used one image for four cards!

Maybe they only had so much budget for different pieces of art? Who knows, but unless you're a weirdo that collects playing cards, you might not even notice it.

Tune your crystal ball in on Friday to find out what the other deck is.

Monthly Media Recap - January 2020

Can you believe it? 2020! Flying cars, personal jetpacks, robot maids.

Maybe next decade...

Streaming

The Witcher (Netflix) - Really enjoyed this despite the timeline being a little confusing for a bit. Even went so far as to post a different "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher" cover video for a week. Not my videos, I'm not musically inclined. Kudos to the song writer as that thing is damn catchy.

The Imagineering Story (Disney+) - A 6 part history of the Disney parks featuring the people behind the scenes. Absolute must watch for anyone that enjoys going to Disney.

Lost In Space, S2 (Netflix) - A great example of how to reboot a series. It doesn't need to be tied to the original show, it's just good storytelling with interesting characters.

The Big Screen

It: Chapter 2 (2019, Redbox)
I'd say this is as different from the first one as Nightmare on Elm Street is to parts 4 or 5. It's not as scary and has more comedic moments. It's a long one, and I didn't mind going on the ride but did it need to be almost 3 hours? SPOILER ALERT: the moral of the story is that you can defeat your bully by bullying them.

Rating: 7/10

Overlord (2018, Amazon Prime)
Not only was this a solid WWII movie but it only gets better when they start getting into the Nazi weird science stuff! It felt like watching a Castle Wolfenstein movie.

Rating: 8/10

10/31 (2017)
A Halloween anthology from the people that did The Barn, I really wanted to like this one. Indie, low budget horror can be a tough sell for me. If I had started this on streaming, instead of having bought the BluRay, I probably would have turned it off after a few minutes. I'll give the writers credit, the story ideas are solid, they just don't have the actors or effects to make them great.

Rating: 4/10

Dead Space: Downfall (2008, Amazon Prime)
A prelude to the original Dead Space video game. Sort of like Resident Evil meets Aliens. It may be animated but it's definitely not for the kiddos! It's got more than enough gore for its 85 minute run time.

Rating: 6/10

Braid (2018, Amazon Prime)
I think you'll either love this one or hate it. You may enjoy the drug-induced fever dream style or you might think it's a pretentious waste of time. It's still a little difficult on where I land on it because there isn't really a main character to root for. The ending didn't make a lot of sense to me but I enjoyed the wild ride.

Rating: 6.5/10

The VelociPastor (2018, Amazon Prime)
Look, if the title and trailer don't sell you on this, you probably won't enjoy it. This movie knows exactly what it is and constantly winks at you to make sure you know too. The film's leading man, Greg Cohan, should rocket to cult status. Probably the best dinosaur vs ninja fight ever committed to film!

Rating: 7/10, this is purely a rating of how much I enjoyed it

Year to Date Total

New: 6   Rewatch: 0