Haywire

It’s feels like forever since I’ve seen a smart action suspense flick. You just don’t get a lot of movies like Sneakers or Heat, especially in today’s market where the big draws are the beefcake like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or Vin Diesel.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy testosterone-y movies as much as the next nerdy dork with no measurable upper body strength (sometimes even more than most as in the case of DOOM), but the films that I watch over and over again are ones like Ronin that require you to pay attention.

SmileGuard Marvel Heroes Toothbrushes

It’s gotten to the point where my collector detector is always on now. No matter where I am, I’m always on the lookout for some kind of toy to buy. I bought a miniature tricycle that’s about 1:18^th scale while my girlfriend and I were shopping in a souvenir shop. I picked up several silly looking figures made of native materials at a prison in Palawan. In Sorsogon I got a not so little whale shark made of wood. My G.I. Joes use it for anti-submarine operations.

The other day, I was in National Bookstore in Galleria and found these: SmileGuard Marvel Heroes Toothbrush Travel Kits.

Nitro Bumblebee

Along with Cyberfire Bumblebee, I recently picked up Nitro Bumblebee, another one of the dozens of Dark of the Moon figures that went on sale before the holidays. Again, I paid Php 500.00 (approx. $11 US) for it, about 30% off the retail price, about a week before they dropped it to 50% off. I’m not complaining. It was one of those on my list marked for eventual purchase.

While not as immediately wowsome as Cyberfire Bumblebee, this figure’s got a few things going for it. Not the least of them is its Mad Max looks. The car mode looks like something that you’d build for the Transcontinental Road Race in Death Race 2000.

Cyberfire Bumblebee

I’d hate to be the guys at Habro.

A few weeks ago The Institute for Global Labour and Human rights tagged with one of their reports that alleged inhumane conditions of workers at their Transformers factory in China. According to the report, the employees of the factories are working insane hours for slave wages. Hasbro responded with a press release that they’d already looked into these allegations and the factory was, in fact, up to standard and that the NGO’s claims were not substantiated by the inspection.

It’s funny since in my experience, the Transformers line has been Hasbro’s most consistent in terms of quality control. I rarely find a Transformer toy with problems that aren’t the result of some tool mishandling it in the store. The Dark of the Moon line is no exception. Even if I largely skipped this series, it wasn’t because of paint issues (I mostly just thought that the movie, characters, and toys sucked).