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League of Extraordinary Bloggers: Favorite “go-to” movie

Posted in Back to the Future, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags Back to the Future, LEB, movies, pop culture, Star Wars on February 9, 2012 by Paxton

Brian over at Cool and Collected has started a new movement. It’s a group of blogs coming together each week to discuss one topic. Brian will hand out the assignments and the blogs will discuss the topic as they see fit. Brian has dubbed it The League of Extraordinary Bloggers.

I pledged to him that I would join in when I can, and seeing as how for once I’m actually way ahead on my own writing I’ve decided to jump in on our first assignment.

This first assignment was to discuss our “go to” movie. A movie we could watch at any time. Just pop it in, curl up on the sofa with an industrial sized bag of Cheetos and start quoting along with the movie. Mine is probably not going to be a shock to anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time. And I hate to keep going back to “the well” on this, but I have to answer truthfully.

On any given weekend, since I was a kid, there are two things I’d pop into the VCR at a moment’s notice depending on how I was feeling that day. The first was Back to the Future.

There is hardly an aspect of this trilogy I have yet to discuss. Check out my Back to the Future archives. Articles galore. The Nerd Lunch crew did an entire podcast discussing the Back to the Future movies and another one on just the topic of time travel. It’s because I’ve seen this movie so many times and know it like the back of my hand that I can talk so often about it. I love this movie. It kindled my love for time travel. The first movie I took my son to when he was literally 1 month and 5 days old was the limited 25th anniversary showing of the original Back to the Future on Oct 25, 2010. I pretty much recited the dialog throughout the entire movie while he slept. So yes, this is definitely a “go to” movie for me. I could probably put the entire trilogy in here as I love all three movies, but I watched the original many more times. Mostly due to the fact that Part II didn’t show up until four years later. So I had time to just load up on repeated Back to the Future viewings. And I own this trilogy on all media formats including VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-Ray.

The second thing I’d pop into my VCR on any given weekend and have on in the background is the Star Wars Trilogy. Most especially the original VHS releases.

It doesn’t matter which one, I consider them all to be one movie. And I have this movie trilogy on nearly every format including VHS (multiple versions), Laserdisc, Video CD and DVD. On any given day my favorite is different. I love all three.

Since college, I could pop on a Back to the Future or Star Wars movie and have it running in the background for hours while I worked on school projects, surfed the Internet or just hung out at home. They are hands down my two favorite movie trilogies. Possibly even my favorite movies of all time.

I even own the deluxe film score to the Back to the Future trilogy as well as the 4 disc Star Wars Trilogy Soundtrack Anthology. I would sometimes put these on in the background while doing homework or working on chores around the house.

Articles from other League of Extraordinary Bloggers

1. Shawn Robare at Branded in the 80s talks about Red Dawn.
2. Christopher Tupa talks about one of my favorites, The Goonies.
3. Siftin’ talks about watching Superman II more times than even I have seen it. And that’s a lot.

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What 10 video games would be in my dream arcade?

Posted in nostalgia, pop culture, video games with tags arcades, Cavalcade Arcade, LEB, nostalgia, pop culture, video games on March 25, 2011 by Paxton

I-Mockery put up a fascinating question on Tuesday. What games would be in your own personal dream arcade? I thought this was a good topic for a lazy Friday afternoon.

So I decided to pick 10 arcade machines I would love to have in my own personal arcade. They are in no particular order.

I want to thank the International Arcade Museum for the awesome images of the video game cabinets. I surf their site regularly for images of my favorite arcade and pinball games as well as images of some awesome video game advertisement flyers. To see more images (including screen shots of game play) of these and thousands more arcade games as well as get more detailed info, click the images to go to the International Arcade Museum.

Anyway, on to the games.

Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (1991) – There were like a million different versions of this game. I’d take any of them, but I hold a special place in my heart for Champion Edition and Champion Edition Turbo. This was one of the first great fighting games. Great for competitions. It attracted large audiences to watch two guys just go at it. Lots of fun characters with cool move combos. The character I preferred to use was Chun-Li. She was both pretty and deadly.

Mortal Kombat II (1993) – The only one in the arcade franchise to use Roman Numerals. The next two games would be MK3 and MK4. The first Mortal Kombat was almost too easy but Mortal Kombat 3 was way too damn hard. This fell right in the sweet spot of hard but fun. Also, this game rivaled NBA Jam for the amount of hidden Easter Eggs you could find. Characters, finishing moves like fatalities, friendships, etc. It was insane and fun. I liked to use Sub Zero and my friend, Steve, liked Scorpion. I still hear Scorpion’s “GET OVER HERE!” in my nightmares.

NBA Jam: Tournament Edition (1993) – I talked about this game in-depth over on Strange Kid’s Club. Greatest. Basketball. Game. EVER. I would also like to have NBA Maximum Hangtime, but it’s so close in gameplay to NBA Jam that I am reluctant to have two machines that are so similar in the same arcade.

Karate Champ (1984) – This is the game that got me into fighting games. I LOVED THIS GAME. I used to play it at my local movie theater arcade. I got pretty good and made it through a punch of matches. The scenery changed constantly. One time you’d be in the forest, then on a log spanning a cavern, then on a cruise ship deck. The bonus stage had you battling a bull. This game was kicked all kinds of ass.