DVD Archives - Page 7 of 7

Name That Tune Eighties DVD Game Review

Posted on September 23, 2008 by sexyarmpit

Could Name That Tune Eighties DVD game triumph over RIFF the reigning champion of DVD music trivia games? Will it’s bargain basement price tag of $7.99 (I got a deal on amazon it’s usually $25.00!) prove to be a sign of weakness? We’ll see how it unfolds in this review.

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why this game sucks royally. I usually find DVD games amusing even though they’re notorious for churning out repeat questions and having fairly long loading times. Fortunately, load times were fast on this one but some questions that came up were significantly difficult especially for the unnatural amount of trivia that resides in my cluttered attic of a brain. Other than those few gems the game is super easy. I did get the same question a few times and it was the first time I played the damn game! Another gripe I had is the way the scores are announced isn’t as easy to understand as in RIFF. A few times, I found myself wondering if the score was even accurate.

Name That Tune Eighties provides at the very least, a few different options not usually seen in music trivia games. First is the option to play a 25, 50, or 80 point game, depending on how much time you have to waste. Players also have the option to steal points from their opponent, play for bonus points, or go double or nothing, while the standard question rakes in 5 points.

Among other strikes against it, this game omits a simple yet important feature. When you get a question wrong the game doesn’t provide the correct answer! That was probably my biggest disappointment with the game since there’s times that I’m able to remember stuff just because it was the answer to a trivia question in a recent game I played. Name That Tune not only fails with frequent repeat questions but it also gives variations on the same questions which is worse! At least a repeat question can be forgiveable but if you know anything about the Georgia Satellites you might be the heavyweight champ of this game. Obviously, no one should know that much about the Georgia Satellites.

Here’s an example of one of it’s lame questions: “Listen to the song and try to remember who sang it.” A royalty free muzaky version of the Miami Vice theme song plays. Naturally the correct answer is the songs composer Jan Hammer. There’s no lyrics in the instrumental song so the game should’ve been smart enough to modify it’s question.

’80s trivia is not all bad. One feather in it’s cap is that you can steal points away from your opponent and you’re ability to bet on your chances of answering the question. You only have a few chances to do that so don’t blow through them too quickly. The game also features other music trivia in addition to the general “Name That Tune” questions. Considering it’s flaws I’ll admit that I still had a good time playing this game but it doesn’t come close to the heated arguments that have arisen from bouts of RIFF! I’ll recommend giving it a try only since it’s price was so reasonable. Don’t let the glow of the covers flashy neon fool you, if it’s over $10 you’re getting ripped off.

Two-Face Cameo In Dead Heat?

Posted on August 12, 2008 by sexyarmpit

While checking out the archives at Nightchillers Rare Music blog, I saw a movie mentioned that jogged my memory. Dead Heat, (1988) is a buddy cop movie in the vein of 48 hours and Lethal Weapon, but done ZOMBIE STYLE! The film stars cult hero Treat Williams, an actor who I’m surprised hasn’t had a book written about him similar to The Truth About Chuck Norris. We also get to see Jersey boy Joe Piscopo star as Treat Williams partner, Doug Bigelow. Sure, some of the SFX are dated but that’s part of the charm. It’s the type of comedy/shocker that we really don’t see made anymore. If you want to relive some great ’80s late night cable memories then definitely pick up a copy of Dead Heat. Cheesy jokes, reanimated corpses, and Joe Piscopo…how can you go wrong? I haven’t watched this movie since I was a kid so I popped it in the other day and had a moderate revelation. Treat Williams was the first on-screen Two-Face!

It’s undeniable if you ask me! Of course Treat Williams didn’t actually play Harvey Dent, he played Detective Roger Mortis, but I’ll be damned if the makeup artist wasn’t a huge Batman fan! Be sure to look out for appearances by Darren McGavin, Toru Tanaka, Martha Quinn, and VINCENT PRICE!

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol.1

Posted on August 4, 2008 by sexyarmpit

Referred to in the film Mallrats as “The Dirt Mall,” the defunct US1 Flea Market was a notorious local landmark. Why is footage of a plain old indoor Flea Market such a great pop culture moment? Well, if you’re from the central part of New Jersey you’ve probably shopped there many times. Jersey boy Kevin Smith proudly or perhaps not so proudly displayed this
flea market. Now, not only New Jersey nostalgia buffs but all moviegoers can see it. Thankfully, I’ll never forget how this place looked because the US1 Flea Market in New Brunswick, New Jersey will forever be emblazoned on DVD! Thanks Silent Bob, Snootchie Bootchies! (berzerker attack)

When I was a kid in the ’80s (gosh such a long time ago! lol) it was a big treat to come shopping at the US1 Flea Market because I knew I would most likely get some sort of collectible, or “way out there” addition to my collection. It was possible to go in there with the $10 allowance money I had saved up and leave with a bag of random stuff. I remember one time I came home with a Samantha Fox poster, and a 3-D G.I Joe comic book among other cool schwag. Not too bad for a kid about 7 years old. Bless my parents for having such a libidinous, well read boy…well at least in 3-D.

Maybe Smith was making a statement about the shift in consumerism? In contrast to the beautiful sparkling malls that began to emerge in the late ’80s and early ’90s, this old flea market seems almost archaic. Better or worse, indoor malls changed shopping for all of us! No longer was I able to pick up comic books, rock music pins for my jean jacket, and KISS t-shirts all for $10 bucks or less in the same building. Since then, malls in my area have always failed to impress me. Throughout the years it’s been an uphill battle to keep a comic store in business in our local malls. It always seemed like they weren’t able to pay the high rent. Immediately, children’s clothing stores and nail salons would snatch up the empty space. What other way were we supposed to buy vintage collectibles, toys, and posters of Susanna Hoffs? What if my Real Ghostbusters pencil with the Slimer pencil topper broke and I needed a new one? Malls by us didn’t always carry obscure stuff, so without the flea market we had to look out for a garage sale or an ad in a newspaper. That was too much work! Boy am I glad the Internet decided to weasel its way into our lives!

The site of the old US1 Flea Market is now an AMC 18-plex Movie Theater that I’ve gone to frequently since it opened. I actually worked there a few times too since it owned the Menlo Park Mall theater which I worked at for several years. It’s a nice place if you could get past the corpse buried in the parking lot.

RIFF The Music Trivia DVD Game Review

Posted on August 4, 2008 by sexyarmpit

It’s possible you might spend up to 3 hours intensely debating which singers left their bands to become actors. It could seem mind blowing to find out that Tupac was murdered before the advent of Napster. Did the lyric to that song contain the word BLEED or BREATHE? It all seems inconsequential, but not if you’re a hard core music fiend or just an avid trivia buff. I consider myself both and if you’re anything like me then I totally recommend purchasing RIFF, The Music Trivia DVD game.

Unfortunately they aren’t paying me or giving me a kickback to promote their game but it’s one of the better games that has been released in the past few years. I’ve had this game for a couple of years already and each time I play it debates and heated discussions take place. Music trivia games tend not to have a high re-playability factor and usually DVD games get old quick. With DVD games it’s typical to get repeat questions and play the game once or twice and never play it again. If you’re playing with a group or your significant other RIFF will surprise you by how fun it is. Depending on the level of useless knowledge you retain, some of the questions may seem excruciatingly hard while others may seem so easy that Vince Clortho could blow through them without any prodding from Egon. You’ll be put to the test with all different kinds of questions dealing with everything from Heavy Metal and Gospel, to album covers and song lyrics.

One reviewer on the Target site complained that the game repeats itself, but that isn’t always accurate. I’ve played the game a ton of times and only had a handful of repeat questions. When you’re working with a DVD game you’re bound to have a repeat. After your hard fought victory you can walk the halls of Hard Rock Café’s ROCK VAULT which is a cool feature that displays pictures and trivia from Hard Rock’s collection of memorabilia. I find Riff to be as engaging as Scene It and it can definitely stand up with the big boys like Trivial Pursuit. Riff is a must have for music fans so track it down if you can and let me know what you think!

New York City: Champion of Scuzz

Posted on March 17, 2008 by sexyarmpit

It’s obvious that New York has always trumped New Jersey in their bitter rivalry for popularity. Although, in the battle for who’s scummier, smellier, and who has the better strip clubs, it’s usually a pretty close match up. A recent trip to NYC granted me the opportunity to hereby relinquish New Jersey’s contention in this silly grudge once and for all. WE SUBMIT!!!

I went to a bar in Manhattan where I took the risk of using the men’s room. As my tinkle started to trickle down into the urinal, I noticed a familiar title emblazoned on the brownish yellow urinal screen. I was actually paying attention to the urinal screen, so I figured I HAD to be drunk. But I wasn’t and the urinal screen said VAN WILDER! Van Wilder is one of my favorite movies and I doubted this promotional item was from the original Van Wilder, and my deduction was correct. After a close examination (yes folks, I DID make a closer examination…I may have actually made out with the bacteria, fly infested urinal, but I proved I was right)

The ribbon that used to be underneath the title VAN WILDER has worn off. It used to say The Rise of Taj. Regardless, according to IMDB The Rise of Taj went straight to DVD and was released for a short time theatrically on December 1st, 2006 and the DVD went on sale on March 27th, 2007. If my calculations are correct, promotional items for The Rise of Taj were probably put out at least a month ahead of time. I wonder how much longer they’ll leave this sickeningly old thing in there? I always knew NYC bathrooms were disgusting, but keeping that in the urinal for so long has to be violating some sort of health code.

I bet they have no idea that there’s some guy blogging about their urinal screen. Haha…it’s the little things. Secretly writing about their lack of changing their urinal screen really gives me the jollies for some reason. Probably cause I’m a sick fuck.

Perhaps they’re leaving the screen in there for the novelty factor, like an in-joke in a movie? Though the only people who are getting a little “rise” out of it are the people like me who appreciate obscure pop culture references that would’ve otherwise been lost to the ages. Or they’re just trying to be delightfully tacky. Something tells me that the actual DVD of The Rise of Taj will soon be worth as much as this 2-year old promotional urinal screen. I can see it making the ridiculously huge $5 bargain bins at Wal-Mart! Unless the bar owner can prove Justin Timberlake once pissed on it, I’m pretty sure it’s time to retire the Taj screen. DING, DING, DING!! Can we get Michael Buffer over here? HERE IS YOUR WINNER AND NEW INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPION OF SCUZZ: NEW YORK CITY!!!

TNT’s Evel Knievel Movie, 2004

Posted on December 1, 2007 by sexyarmpit

This post originally appeared on my other site the now defunct Super Cycles. We mourn the passing of Evel Knievel. To honor the great daredevil, let’s take a look at one of the several films about his life.

Made for TNT in 2004, Evel Knievel, gives Knievel’s career a Boogie Nights treatment. The film was based on the book Evel Incarnate: The Life and Legend of Evel Knievel by Steven Mandich. In the opening of the movie we see Evel (played by George Eads of CSI) getting ready for his jump over Caesar’s Fountain in Las Vegas in 1968. Many of the quick cuts were taken from actual footage, while others throughout the film were accurately reproduced right down to the old ABC TV logo. It’s fast pace and exciting atmosphere is what made me enjoy this film.

The film didn’t waste time with tons of back story. The plot was set and ready to go rapidly as if it was Evel preparing the crowd for one of his jumps. Starting in his early years, little Bobby Knievel was a risk taker. He was getting caught stealing hubcaps and bicycling away from the cops. As he got older he quit his steady paycheck at the coal mine so he could open his own Motorcycle shop. He even advertised a FREE motorcycle to anyone who could beat him in arm wrestling. Knievel thrived on attention.

While performing a few bike stunts and collecting some cash, he caught the eye of the lovely Linda Bork (Jaime Pressly.) Bork quickly fell for Knievel and the mystery and thrills that went along with him. The money was flowing in once he made the deal with Caesar’s to jump the fountains. Right after his wipe out at Caesar’s, Bork stood by Knievel throughout his 29 day coma. He was told he wouldn’t be able to walk or ever ride a bike again. Knievel was too strong and he wouldn’t hear any of that nonsense. There were many references to Steve Mcqueen while Evel took a potshot at John Wayne: “Tell him I said he’s a wuss.” Knievel clearly wasn’t afraid of anything. Evel occasionally came out with some pretty prolific quotes like “A jump is like an orgasm” or “Nothing could kill me, I’m Evel Knievel.” You’d have to think he was an adrenaline junky. When one reporter questioned him about the fact that kids were trying to duplicate his stunts he explained that kids”shouldn’t hide or cower from life.”

Thankfully there was a light atmosphere throughout the film, even though there was surely some dark moments in Knievel’s life. There were a few times when the deleterious effects of his fame were explored. Evel would drink heavily, and cheat on his wife, even with one of her old friends. When not flying into a fit of rage, Knievel kept his sense of humor in the press conferences shown in the film. Knievel was frequently shown urinating in random places, which may have been because he was constantly drinking throughout the film.

Pressly made us feel like Bork was the heart and soul behind Knievel. Eads was a perfect fit into Knievel’s legendary jumpsuit but he would still be drinking beers and eating nuts on the couch if Pressly’s Bork didn’t rev up his engine when he ran out of gas. Through Knievel’s injuries and adulteries, Bork was loyal and Pressly did a fine job at portraying her. When the Snake River jump failed, it didn’t seem like that much of a loss. Knievel was upset and Eads made us feel it but it didn’t seem like he was really all that pissed because it didn’t take very long to pull himself back up and try another jump. This is what made Knievel stand out from the crowd. Whether he kept going back for the money or the rush of it all is questionable.

This film gave us a unique insight about how surreal it must have been for Knievel at that time. Knievel gained a huge loyal fan base and visited arenas all over the country to showcase his stunts. The Ballad of Evel Knievel played on a jukebox while he was in a bar and Evel gazed up at a theater marquee that was playing Even Knievel starring George Hamilton. It was also a treat to watch a meeting with Ideal toys where one employee pitches an Even Knievel action figure. (Evel wasn’t sure to call it a “doll” or an “action figure.”) When the movie followed Evel’s rapid rise to fame and the decadence of mansions and women it reminded me of Boogie Nights.

TNT’s Evel Knievel proves to be exciting, entertaining, and humorous. If you’re a Knievel fan I doubt you missed this one when it aired on TNT, but if not, it’s available on DVD. In it, you’ll see a nail biting recreation of the Snake River Canyon jump and other faithful re-creations of Evel’s classic stunts. At the end, facts about Knievel’s career appear on the screen during his jump over 14 school buses. Just a few of the facts they mentioned are that he’s performed over 300 jumps and he holds the Guiness Record for most broken bones. Broken bones aside, what I took away from this film is that if you don’t even try to accomplish your goal you never will. First, decide on what you want, and keep trying even though you may fail a few times. No matter how hard you think the obstacle is, you have to persevere. Because of his extreme stunts and his never say die attitude, the spectacle Evel Knievel created will be always remembered by fans everywhere.

The Goonies Treasures Discovered

Posted on November 19, 2007 by sexyarmpit

In the past 20 some odd years it’s been tough being a Goonies fan. We waited such an insanely long time after DVDs became mainstream to even get The Goonies on DVD. ’80s classics like The Gremlins had an early release when DVD’s first got popular, but Goonies fans had to continually watch our beat up VHS copies. There’s also been constant teasing from the media for several years that a Goonies sequel has been in the works but it never seems to go anywhere.

Things started to look up a few years ago when The Goonies was finally given a nice treatment on DVD. About 6 years ago I started to notice an influx of Goonies merch like T-shirts, lunch boxes, and a whole lot of junk that could most likely be purchased at your local Hot Topic. I didn’t care what it was, or where I could get this stuff, I was just happy to see that my favorite movie of all time was finally getting some play. Even growing up there wasn’t much fervor for the Goonies and I didn’t see why. At the time, everyone close to my age loved watching the Goonies. I remember my mother bringing me to see it and I thought it was the most awesome movie ever and it reminded me of how it was hanging out with my friends at the time.

Just when there finally seems to be a big demand for Goonies stuff, I’m really losing my touch trying to keep tabs on all of these cool collectibles. If it weren’t for the Internet I would miss out on alot of crap. I try to keep up on the collectible landscape but the new Goonies action figures seemed to have slipped by me. I went to a website that said they’ve been out since August, so I immediately bought the entire 5 figure set. These figures are unbelievable. The accessories! Chunk has his milkshake (cause it brings all the boys to the yard), Mouth has his comb, and Mikey comes with an alternate hand so he can suck on his inhaler. Freakin’ amazing! While purchasing the figures, I noticed another entry for the “Copper Bone” contraption that Mikey used to activate the huge boulder trap. I couldn’t believe that a replica of this existed and how cool it looked. It’s a limited edition made by Mezco Toys and it was a Comic Con exclusive. When it came in the mail, I was overwhelmed at it’s authenticity and beautiful packaging.

Just this morning while doing a Goonie Google search, I found another great Goonies related treasure. How could I have missed this one? Did you happen to see it? Apparently Jeep is celebrating 20 years of their involvement in the Goonies film and they have a video game Goonies: Return to Astoria on their site. The game is downright horrible to play but there’s new artwork and a trailer to check out.

It’s fantastic that all this Goonies nostalgia’s happening, so hopefully it’ll make way for a sequel. I’m sure the pirate nostalgia caused by the popularity of the Pirates of the Carribean films helped out a bit. ’80s nostalgia in general is big too, and it only means dollar signs so why not keep it rolling? One of the best parts of being a Goonies collector is that there aren’t too many things to actually get. I’m happy with my Goonies posters, Goonies Burger King glasses, and movie magazines, although I am even more excited that there will be more to come.