Category: Geeky stuff

Your Avengers movie cheatsheet

Did you know that there have been EIGHTEEN movies released in the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the past decade?

18. Do you know how many Star Wars movies there are? 10, give or take (depends on if you count that Ewok stuff from the ’80s). And that’s over 40 years.

18.

If you haven’t been trying to keep up, you’re probably already painfully aware that it was a ridiculous number like that. If you’ve been gobbling them all up like a sleeve of girl scout cookies, however, you might have lost track of the madness.

Never fear, however! If you haven’t been keeping up and don’t want to sit through 40 hours of movies (check out this absurd marathon, which I’m pretty sure would kill a normal person), but you still have an interest in checking out one of the newer movies — perhaps the cultural phenomenon that is “Black Panther” or the mega-hyped “Avengers: Infinity War” coming out in a month or so — I am here to help. As a handy reference point, I’ll attempt to break down the major characters/plotlines in as simple a fashion as possible.

Feel free to bookmark and return to this as you need a refresher.

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Star Wars retrospective: A New Hope

There is a scene in the original “Star Wars” (1977) that is often cited as being most representative of the themes contained therein.  It is of the protagonist Luke Skywalker staring off into the binary sunset as John Williams’ epic score swells.  Thanks to the fantastical sci-fi imagery on display (two suns, not just one!), and of course Williams’ wizardry, the audience is meant to take a breath (or perhaps lose it) in a moment of pure poetry.  Thematically, this is where the renamed movie earns its new subtitle, “A New Hope,” for we are now all in on joining Luke on his hero’s journey from this point forward.  It is deeply relatable, this hope, wonder and ambition of youth.  And truly, the golden boy will end up saving us all (multiple times, in fact).

But this is never the first scene I come to when I recall the movie.  Likewise, I don’t immediately go to the film’s most awe-inspiring sequence, the Star Destroyer rumbling overhead to open the movie and blowing out our eardrums while simultaneously making us question: “How big is this thing, anyway?”*

* Appropriately, this question can be applied to the size of the ship as well as the overall spectacle contained within the movie itself.

I don’t generally go straight to my earliest Star Wars memory either, that of the shoot-out on the Tantive IV or the droids’ subsequent journey through the desert (these images are burned into my subconscious forever).  What about the phenomenal closing space battle winding over and around the Death Star?  Or Jedi mentor Obi Wan’s heroic self-sacrifice?  Or our first glimpses of the outlandish Cantina and all of the bizarre creatures inhabiting it?  Nope, nope and nope.

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‘The Last Jedi’ provides new thrills … and a familiar feel

I think I’m done with the business of ranking Star Wars movies.  “The Last Jedi” has done me in.

I could make a pretty compelling argument for this being one of the three best movies in the franchise.

I could also make a pretty great case for it being one of the three worst movies in the series.

It doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me to spend time or energy trying to come up with a proper ranking at this point, especially with it still being so fresh.  There are probably better pursuits a person can engage in.

Such as ranking porg appearances!

Just kidding, but yes I wanted to put some thoughts about the new movie down for posterity.  And its capacity for keeping folks like me unsure about its place within the saga is as good a place to start as any.

Continue reading ‘The Last Jedi’ provides new thrills … and a familiar feel

The best Super NES games of all time

Ranking Super Nintendo games is basically an impossible task. Go through any “best-of” list around the interwebs and you’ll see an absolutely loaded selection of games, featuring some of the true all-time greats.

Looking through the selection of games for other video game systems, I have little doubt this was the greatest console of all time. There’s just so much depth.

So how do you sift through all of that?

After making my own list, I still don’t know.

I do know my inspiration came about in part because of the release of the Super NES Classic, a retro system release (featuring 20 games from the original lineup … and one new one) which I recently read has been outselling “new” consoles like the Switch and Playstation 4.

That it’s resonating in a major way is no surprise to me. I bought one myself!

Read on for a list of 30 reasons why Super Nintendo nostalgia is at an all-time high.

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Some Super NES Classic thoughts

If you follow me on social media, you know I recently succumbed to my nostalgia and purchased a Super NES Classic, the retro re-release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that originally made its debut in late 1990.

It’s been 27 years? Holy crap, I’m old.

Anyway, this was mostly simpler than you might expect given Nintendo’s notorious supply and demand issues. I woke up a little early and hung out at Target for an hour before they opened. The other people in line were all remarkably friendly and the whole affair was civil and organized.

Props to Target! And props to Cait for waking up early and ferrying the kids to school for me!

So I am now in the process of playing all of the games that come pre-installed on the system. This is a treasure trove of some of the best video games that have appeared anywhere at any time. Instead of listing them here, I’ll offer some of my thoughts on a few of them, as well as the system itself. Later on down the road, I’ll do a ranking of the best games on the original system … after I’ve had a chance to play some of these classics I’d never gotten around to before.

So here goes:

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Top 10 Star Wars Trailers

(Note: This was previously published May 2017. I have edited the rankings to reflect the new trailer released since then.)

A new Star Wars trailer is here!  A new Star Wars trailer is here!

Ahem, excuse my delirium.

Honestly, when “The Last Jedi” teaser trailer dropped, I was perhaps more intrigued than flabbergasted.  As my better half stated, “There’s a lot to unpack there.”  And there always is, which makes the release of any new Star Wars trailer always a fun occasion.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time here analyzing the thing … pretty much any nerd with the ability to pause and an encyclopedic knowledge of Wookiepedia is going to do a better job of that than me anyway.

No, I’m falling back into my comfort zone of rankings.

Here, without further buildup, are my picks for the 10 best trailers (including teasers) in the history of Star Wars. (I will edit this list as new trailers are released.)

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A Star Wars re-ranking

Let’s re-rank the Star Wars films, because … ha, ha, ha! Like I need a reason!

Actually, I even have one: “Rogue One” is making its home video debut right now (I like calling it “home video” to recall the awesome-sauce that was VHS tapes), so now is as good a time as any. I last performed this exercise when there were six films.  Now there are eight.  And no, I’m not counting the Ewok movies, the Clone Wars cartoon, the Holiday Special, or even that shoddy-looking fan film you think is better than TFA and everyone else just sort of sadly nods at you in abject pity.

No, NOT EVEN THAT.

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Rogue One Enhances the Star Wars Saga Wonderfully

One of the best things about Star Wars is how it is an incredible gateway drug.  You think you’re sitting there, watching an innocuous fantasy film, and then they drop some nugget on you that gets your brain all worked up, and soon you have more questions than answers … and an insatiable desire to learn more.

“Rogue One” is the natural evolution of one of those threads, what the opening crawl in the first film was really all about.  That the film mostly answers one’s questions satisfactorily is basically just the cherry on top … the journey of discovery (and the inspiration of new questions) is the true joy.

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Pursuit of Crappiness podcast Episode 5: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Check out that spread!
Check out that spread!

Roger Ebert some years ago did a series of reviews of movies he had seen before, but decided to revisit given their general stature or importance to him. He called this series “Great Movies.”

On some subconscious level, I think this was the general area I was trying to slap this particular baseball (my podcast) into … find that sweet spot of the films that matter to people and try to get a solid double out of it. There’s no minimum requirement here in terms of Oscar nods or what have you, but I did want to find the films that people care about … and while doing this, I leave open the possibility that this could well morph into something else. My Ichiro-like metaphor is meant to be “doubly” apt in this way … the sweet spot is subject to change, and therefore so am I.

That said, “Star Wars” is in many ways the perfect fit for The Pursuit of Crappiness, a culturally relevant collection of films with wide critical and public acceptance. Moreover, there’s a lot to digest in these movies and several different directions a conversation can go.

To celebrate the blu ray and digital release of “The Force Awakens,” the seventh film in the series (eighth if you include the somewhat maligned “Clone Wars” animated feature), I got together a bigger group than normal to discuss the film (and eat delicious goodies put together by my wife, Cait). For this episode, I was joined by Twitter personality Alfredo Narvaez, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune reporter Michelle Hunter, and Dash Rip Rock drummer Kyle Melancon — three big fans of the new film and of “Star Wars” in general.

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