Cult Media: A Smorgasbord of Awesome

As I pointed out in my last post, I have been getting really into B-movies.  I may have used the wrong term there,  while the movies I was talking about were both B-movies, they fall better into the genre of cult films.  Since then I have watched enough of these to get Netflix to offer me a whole list of cult films in their never-ending quest to please me.  Throughout my life I have had a taste for cult media and usually (the exception) been very fond of each of the ones I have been exposed to.  So sit back and enjoy as I venture off into my experiences with some of my favorite cult works by medium.

Video Games
I decide to start with video games because seeing a coming remake of an old cult favorite, Jet Set Radio was what inspired me to write this piece in the first place.  The only problem with cult video games is that while what constitutes any piece of cult media is a very fuzzy definition, the criteria for being a cult video game is even less defined, so using my power of claiming what I want without consequence because nobody reads or comments upon my blog, I declare all of the following cult video games.  Now back to Jet Set Radio, this game originally came out on the ill-fated Dreamcast and was one of my favorite titles.  In my younger years I really liked to do inline skating, and I loved the look of cel shading (I believe this was the first game to use cel shading but I'm not completely sure) so when those two are paired with fun gameplay and an infectious soundtrack, I will always like it.  Also on the Dreamcast was another cult favorite of mine, Powerstone 2.  Hectic 3-D fighting with items and an extreme focus on positioning, it should have become a rival to Super Smash Bros. but never did due to the lack of Dreamcast players (and Capcom being an asshole and deciding they would rather make 1,000 more of every other franchise they have).

With characters like this, who needs enemies?

There are also an abundance of cult sports games I loved to play but have since disappeared due to sad reasons.  One of which is NFL 2k5, a game I only owned because my brothers wanted to get me a birthday gift and this game retailed for $20 because it knew it was a great game and wanted to steal sales from Madden.  It was an awesome marketing ploy for a game that did a few things that Madden took years upon years to catch up to (I will argue the hits still look more realistic) and played a lot more like a football simulation than a football game.  Unfortunately the greatness of this game got EA's attention who then bought out the NFL license and now 2K sports can't use real teams and gave up on football.  But that isn't the only old sports game I still play, much like the guys from Swingers I find hockey games a lot of fun even though I'm not a huge fan of the sport itself.  Since their favorite part of the game obviously includes making Wayne Gretzky's head bleed, my favorite hockey game makes hockey look like a warzone, naturally then the game I'm talking about is NHL Hitz (02 and 03 both have equal merit).  It is just a plain fun game and that is all I will say.

Did I mention Zombie team at Wild West Stadium?

A more recent cult favorite of mine is Alan Wake, which I discussed in a previous article, and it's Xbox Live Arcade spin off Alan Wake's American Nightmare.  As far as I know, no other game in my Xbox 360 library has the potential to be a cult classic, except possibly for Crackdown or as many people know it "the game I bought so I could play the Halo 3 beta."  I also can't resist giving a mention to the great but technologically flawed Space Station Silicon Valley on the N64, if only they could have given it more time and love that would have been one of the best.

This game too!

Movies
You can simply scroll down and look at my last post to get my opinion on both They Live and From Dusk Till Dawn, so I will just mention them in passing as I move on.  I also am in the minority of not considering The Shawshank Redemption a cult movie as it is IMDB.com's top rated movie of all time (a well-deserved honor as it is one of my top 3 favorite movies), a movie loses cult status when it is so well-loved by such a large movie.  The first cult movie I had taken a liking to was Donnie Darko, it really never does make sense to you but the whole time it is just so interesting and entertaining and gives off a sense of grandeur that I still do not know is warranted or not.  One of my favorite cult films is The Warriors, a movie that manages to make being a gang member look like great fun (without the need to snap and dance), and even got me to spend the money on buying this shirt for the great liking I had taken to the Baseball Furies gang in the movie.  I would also recommend going on Netflix and making a search for Cult movies, you will find tons of interesting and quirky movies that you might not think of seeing otherwise.  Movies such as the Adam Sandler masterpiece Billy Madison, the first film in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy, the so-bad-it's-good masterpiece that is Troll 2 and probably my favorite of the bunch, Beetlejuice.

A screenshot of a Goblin from Troll 2, no Trolls to be found in that film.

TV Shows
This is the one outlet of cult media that I am not very well-versed in but I will try to share a few suggestions on what I believe are cult TV shows.  First is Twin Peaks, which I have also mentioned in my last post as a newfound taste, and also coerced me into buying a Teefury shirt.  It is a very weird show that follows Special Agent Dale Cooper and Twin Peaks Sheriff Harry Truman as they attempt to solve the murder of high school sweetheart Laura Palmer.  The show seemingly takes on two completely different genres based on who is on screen going from supernatural crime show (similar to cult favorite The X-Files) to soap opera spoof, yet it somehow works.  I am also in the midst of watching/re-watching the cult comedy My Name is Earl which follows the chronicles of Earl Hickey as he tries to win over karma by making up for the many bad things he had done in his past.  It has a lot of making fun of white trash, a lot of good feeling moments and most importantly one of my favorite characters of all time (and article on this will come someday).  Speaking of favorite characters I might as well make a comment about good old Steve Holt! from Arrested Development.  Whenever the cancellation of your show causes fans to complain for over 5 years and ultimately lead to the show coming back and possibly a movie, your show takes on super-cult status.      

Would have been just as good (possibly better)

But for the greatest cult television show of all time I won't even say the title but I will point out it still has a fan club "Six of One", has what is considered the greatest intro sequence of all time, and can be unmistakably identified by this picture.

 I hope you read this and found some good recommendations.  Be seeing you.

The Unemployment Chronicles: Part 1 of Hopefully 1

My last blog post was just over a month ago now, back when my time after graduation was no different from a typical college student's winter break.  During that time I didn't really have much to complain about, my friends were around, I was giving myself an intentional reprieve from doing anything constructive, and as far as I was concerned I was succeeding in what I wanted to do.  We found ourselves having some good times, a lot of video games were played, a few football games and there was even a trip to the city to have some drinks with a friend who has moved away!  There are minimal complaints about my pretend vacation, but the thing about vacations is that unless it involves the Titanic, they don't last forever.  And thus a great portion of my friends moved back to their schools and I was left basically home alone to start my new life as a grown-up.

I'm sorry, once you became the 2nd highest grossing movie ever.  You lost the right for any joke to be "too soon."

 Being a grown-up is almost exactly like being a 12 year old again in my situation.  You have no money, you can't go out and hang out with your friends all the time (I don't have a car), you spend most of your days watching TV and playing video games and the only thing you are really looking forward to is baseball season.  I quickly realized that this was going to get old quickly and started shipping my resume around to places that seemed they would be interesting in hiring someone with an extraordinary academic record leading up to receiving their B.S. in Mathematics, which is a smaller subset of companies than you would be led to believe.  For the record, receiving the physical copy of my diploma has probably been one of the most underwhelming moments of my life, my first thought was to make a paper airplane from it, but it eventually found its place in a frame on my wall like everyone else's.  All frustrated hostility aside, my resume started to make its rounds at places all over the country.  In the half-month or so I have received calls, e-mails or some form of interest from places in Massachusetts, Florida and North Carolina, one of which was an on site interview in which at the time it seemed like there was a genuine interest in myself.  So, there is reason to believe I have a nice and desirable education, but I have not quite found an opportunity to take the next step.

Mine never even got to wear a hat!

Meanwhile, to kill time all day I have found myself getting enthralled in such productive endeavors as Batman: Arkham City, FIFA 12, Netflix and playing with my dogs in addition to searching for new and exciting ways to keep in touch with my friends.  Now please excuse me for a minute while I attempt to think of something interesting and new to say about any one of these things.

Despite such a great motivating speech from Special Agent Dale Cooper from the show Twin Peaks, I still am searching for something interesting...

Almost onto something here...

That's it!  I can talk about my new found love for B-movies.  I am pretty sure everyone on earth who sees that clip from John Carpenter's They Live will agree that it is completely awesome, and I would also recommend anybody to watch From Dusk Till Dawn as I found that to be one of the most entertaining movies I have ever seen, and Toninho strongly agrees with my tastes in both movies.  But now lets move on back to slightly more important matters in my life.

I spent last week back at my school apartment (by way of train for all you smart asses who were remembering my admission to not having a car) because Wednesday was the school's career fair.  I think the career fair went well but to tell you the truth it was really nothing worth discussing at this point.  The rest of the week was nice though, after weeks of barely seeing anybody outside of my family it was a very good thing to be around people my age again and maintain my social skills.  Over the course of the week I spent a lot of downtime with my housemates playing video games and watching TV, being a normal college student again (without the classwork of course).  My visit also happened to correspond to my graduating class's "100 Days Party" so not only was I able to find the opportunity to see a lot of the friends I spent a lot of time with over the course of college, I was also able to run into many people I probably would not have seen otherwise.  The party itself was pretty good, but not spectacular.  People drank, people danced, my friend claimed to have found the perfect girl for me but couldn't introduce us because we "both have ADD" and couldn't find the both of us simultaneously, I woke up hung over with half of the house a complete mess.  Typical Friday night.

Pretty much

So now I am back at home after this week trying to kick this job search thing into second gear.  I'll try to write more often about things happening in my life so I don't keep bringing these ridiculously long periodic catch ups, and also because another hobby wouldn't hurt.  I'll see you then, but I guess I also need to give the prerequisite Happy Valentines Day to the blogosphere given the time.

I could have not conjured a more silly image.

Oh yeah, and if you would like to hire me, comment below and we can talk. (Don't pretend shameless self-promotion can't ever work)