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“Who’s tha Masta?!”: Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon is 25 years old today

Posted in 80s, movies, pop culture, reviews with tags anniversary, movies, pop culture, reviews on March 22, 2010 by Paxton

On March 22, 1985, Columbia/Tri-Star released Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon in theaters. It was a critical failure, but a financial success. Even today, the film is considered a cult classic. The story of “Bruce” Leroy and his arch enemy “Sho Nuff” have captivated audiences for 25 years. Man, a lot of my favorite movies (Empire Strikes Back, Back to the Future, Young Guns) are celebrating their 25-30 year anniversaries this year and it’s really starting to make me feel old.

(via Brass Knuckle B)
(via The Synopsis)

I saw it in the theater when it was released in 1985 and I loved it. I watched it again the other night to celebrate this 25th anniversary and I still love the movie. Obviously Julius Carry nearly steals the entire movie as Sho Nuff, but Taimak plays Bruce Leroy Green brilliantly and it’s great to see Ernie Reyes Jr in a small role as one of Leroy’s students.

The action is fun and characters are over the top, but it’s your typical tongue-in-cheek ’80s action comedy. Vanity, who plays Laura Charles, could have been any semi-famous pop star of the time and Leroy’s brother is your typical annoying little brother. What makes the movie for me is the final showdown between Leroy and Sho Nuff. It’s a great battle and one I could enjoy over and over. I mean, Sho-Nuff’s pimpin’ red tiger karate outfit might be the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. EVER.

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My Blogiversary: 4 Years of being AWESOME…

Posted in blogging with tags anniversary, blogging, blogiversary, personal on March 10, 2010 by Paxton

I started what became this blog back on March 10, 2006, four years ago today. It all started with a nondescript article about Windows Vista. Actually, I posted like four articles that day. I don’t know what the hell got into me there. And two of them were about Microsoft Vista.

As you can see from the picture above, my blog originally started out on Google’s Blogger platform. I was still finding my feet over there as my articles were all over the map and even less focused than they are now (if you can believe that). I made the move over to WordPress on Jan 18, 2007 with an article about the return of Jack Bauer on Season 6 of 24; Jack Is Back. The very first name of this blog over on Blogger was Pax’s Technotainment Blog as I was going to talk about movies, books and technology. It eventually evolved into What I’m Thinking for a few years and then, in May 2008, I changed the blog’s title to the now infamous, Cavalcade of Awesome. Along with the move to WordPress and the name change, I also registered my own URL, http://paxholley.net. I still need to nail down http://www.cavalcadeofawesome.com.

It’s been a fun four years. I still enjoy writing and posting articles. I’m not doing four articles a day like that first day, but I think the quality has increased. I’ve also met several bloggers along the way that I’ve come to know and enjoy. People like Shawn Robare over at Branded in the 80s, Jen at The Movieholic & Bibliophile’s Blog, Trish at Trish’s Book Reading Nook and Naida at the bookworm. These people are not only entertaining bloggers themselves, they have enough badassery (totally made that up) to keep coming back to my blog and subject themselves to my particular brand of awesome. Got to love them for that.

Anyway, I hope everyone here has enjoyed the last four years as I plan on continuing this little ride for the time being. Stay tuned for my continuing Cavalcade of Awesome.

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Movie Flashback: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation turns 20

Posted in Christmas, holiday, movies with tags anniversary, Christmas Vacation, movies, National Lampoon, reviews on December 1, 2009 by Paxton

Well, it’s December 1st. Hard to believe. Since this is the first day of December, I thought I’d put up a Christmas-y themed article. Today, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation turns 20 years old.

Can you believe it? It was released to theaters on December 1, 1989.

Christmas Vacation, along with the first Vacation movie, are the best of the whole Vacation series. And, along with Van Wilder, the best of the movies titled National Lampoon. Christmas Vacation is a classic Christmas movie. Right up there with It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas and A Christmas Story. And, actually, the son of director Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life) was an assistant director on this movie. My wife and I try to watch it every year during the holidays. It’s not hard as TNT or TBS will show it multiple times a day every week in December until Chistmas.

Here’s some cool trivia about this movie.

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