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The Cult Film Club officially opens on Wednesday

Posted in movies, podcast with tags Cult Film Club, movies, podcast, podcasts on December 3, 2012 by Paxton

I’m going to be a part of a new podcast called Cult Film Club. Like Nerd Lunch, it’ll be a part of The Atomic Geeks Podcasting Network.

My co-hosts are Shawn Robare from Branded in the 80s and Jaime from shezcrafti.com. Click here to learn a little bit more about your hosts.

Shawn Monster Squad

Jaime Sonja

The podcast will be monthly and feature the three of us talking about weird, obscure cult movies from the 60s, 70s and beyond. We’ll talk about the stars, the sets, the soundtracks and whether or not the movie deserves the title of “Cult Classic”. We have a great lineup of movies we can’t wait to watch and talk about with you.

Our very first episode will go live on Wednesday. If you want to hear what movie we’ll be talking about in that episode, take a listen to tomorrow’s all new, Ninja Day episode of the Nerd Lunch Podcast.

You can check out Cult Film Club online at CultFilmClub.com. Click on over and join the club. We are also on Twitter and Facebook.

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Some of my geeky shelf displays

Posted in books, pop culture, Star Wars with tags books, LEB, movies, pop culture, Star Wars on November 30, 2012 by Paxton

New League assignment from Brian this week. We are to present a shelf display of things in our collection that showcases our love of pop culture.

My displays are not what they used to be. I used to have an entire downstairs filled with Star Wars memorabilia. However, since I moved to Florida, that all went into storage and now I only have a few out of the way spots where I can display some of my favorite items.

One of those spots is a bookshelf in my closet.

This bookshelf houses the books on my “To Be Read” pile. And the shelves are double stacked. Some are books I’ve never read before and some are re-reads. Within this shelf you’ll find movie novelizations, comic book novels, Star Trek and Star Wars novels, Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman books, etc, etc. But, as you can see, there are more than just books here.

Hanging on the wall in back you can see the Muppet Christmas Carol poster I have up for the holiday season. That poster changes a few times a year. For Halloween I had up From Dusk till Dawn. On top of the shelf on the left side I have a stack of comic trade paperbacks including some of the Marvel Ultimate books and several Fantastic Four collections. On top of the trades is a shadow box display of my running medals. It includes the bib and medals I received for finishing my first two marathons and several other half-marathons.

Next to those on the right side I have two DVD sets. The black box is the complete Six Million Dollar Man set from Time-Life. It’s awesome. I’ve currently watched through Season 1. On the far right is the Buffy Chosen Collection DVD set featuring all 7 seasons. I really love the first 3.5 seasons of this show. But I’m currently selling it on eBay right now, so if you want it, you can try to buy it.

One other display that I have is a small divided section curio containing some of my Star Wars figures.

It features a mix of new and vintage figures. I tried to theme each section a bit. In the upper left is the stormtrooper section. Lower right is the vintage bounty hunter section. Various Lukes are in the lower left. I should probably switch these figs out a bit more to change up the displays but I haven’t.

Essentially, those are the only shelf displays I really have left. Someday, I’ll post a pictorial essay of my previous “Star Wars Room” pictures.

UPDATE – I forgot to include a pic of my “soda shelf” that I keep at work. It features soda cans from the 80s, 90s and today.

Tour of the vintage Pinball City arcade in the 1980 movie Midnight Madness

Posted in 80s, Atari, movies, pop culture, video games with tags Cavalcade Arcade, movies, pop culture, video games on November 27, 2012 by Paxton

I love video arcades. I always have. I also loved it when arcades popped up in movies. It was fun trying to pick out what games I could see and identify. So, I thought it would be a fun exercise to pick some of my favorite movies that have an arcade scene and do a “walk through” to see what games we could see. This should be interesting because video arcades during the the late 70s to mid 80s are ancient history. There’s nothing really like them anymore. These walk throughs should be nice snapshots of a moment in time at a video arcade during their hey day. So let’s begin.

One of my favorite movies from childhood is the 1980 screwball road race comedy Midnight Madness.

The movie stars David Naughton, Stephen Furst, Eddie Deezen, Debra Clinger and a very young Michael J Fox as a group of college students split up into colored teams (yellow, blue, green, red and white) who go out on an all night long clue hunt.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is the arcade scene at a place called Pinball City. It’s here the characters play a game that I thought was fake, called Star Fire. I’ve talked about this scene before. You can watch that full scene here. Well, there’s a wealth of other awesomely vintage video games in that scene, so let’s start off this first walking tour with Pinball City from the movie Midnight Madness.

This movie was released in early 1980, which means it was probably filmed in mid-to-late 1979.

MM 008
This is the clue the players receive for the arcade. It essentially is a word game that tells them to go to PIN + BALL + SIT + E, or Pinball City.

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Here’s the entrance to Pinball City.

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Here’s the adorable Debra Clinger checking out an Atari Football game which was produced in 1979. Behind her is a carnival shooter game called Shark Bait. However, I could find no information on that game anywhere. I can’t believe that this was created specifically for the movie to be used in a background shot when they didn’t even bother to do that for the Star Fire game.

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In the background of this scene is a giant game called Indy 800. It was manufactured by Kee Games in 1975. The game cabinet was huge and took up 16 feet of space.

MM 012
Here’s a very young Michael J Fox leaning up against a Death Race game. It was manufactured by Exidy in 1976. This game is based on and inspired by the movie Death Race 2000. There were only 500 or so made. When it came out it was banned in many cities due to its violent content.

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Nerd Lunch Episode 62: More Fan Fic Reviews

Posted in movies, pop culture with tags movies, Nerd Lunch Podcast, podcast, podcasts, pop culture on November 20, 2012 by Paxton

Welcome to episode 62 of the Nerd Lunch Podcast. This week we are joined again by Kristin Reily from the Geek Girls Network. This week, we are returning to one of my favorite topics; Fan Fiction.

We all pick a story from the Movies category over at FanFiction.net and we all discuss how awesome our stories are. If you plan on following along, prepare yourself to be overwhelmed. There are an unbelievable amount of properties to choose from. For instance there are greater than 17,000 stories based on High School Musical alone. I know. Star Wars has nearly 30,000 stories. It’s insane. Also, you need to look out for what they call “slash” fiction. Trust me on that one.

Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner. Not that I actually care anymore, but I think we are still on the Zune Marketplace. If it still exists.

Or, click here and listen to it online.

Nerd Lunch Episode 61: TAG Super Fight Dome

Posted in movies, podcast, pop culture, TV shows, video games with tags movies, Nerd Lunch Podcast, podcast, podcasts, pop culture, TV shows, video games on November 13, 2012 by Paxton

Welcome to Episode 61 of the Nerd Lunch podcast. This week we have Jeremy from Geek Chunks returning to the fourth chair as we all ready for battle in the TAG Super Fight Dome.

TAG versus

In the Super Fight Dome, we are given categories and we each pick a combatant with which to do battle. Expect the categories of Celebrity Chefs, Sitcom Dads and Giant Robots, plus several others. It’s a brawl and a free for all, so tune in to see who wins.

Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner. And I’m no longer really sure, but I think we are still on the Zune Marketplace.

Or, listen to it immediately right here.