8-BIT NINTENDO'S GREATEST HITS

Above: God willing, this is what my living room will someday look like.

There are few pleasures simpler or more fulfilling than dusting off the ol' NES System for a couple hours of old school gaming fun. I still own a sizeable collection of 8-bit cartridges, and while my machine may currently be on the fritz (big surprise there), it will soon be resurrected in an attempt to bring meaning and direction to my life. That being said, please enjoy a dozen clips of magical moments from our shared Gamer Past, featuring some of the most challenging and action-packed games ever. This was a truly enjoyable trip down memory lane for me, I sincerely hope it has a similar effect for all of you.


First off, we have the final stages and end sequence of one of my favorite obscure NES games, Master Chu And Drunkard Hu. Produced by an unlicensed company on one of those weird light blue cartridges.



Another obscure classic, Ninja Crusaders, featuring ninjas battling cyborgs in a post-apocalyptic setting. This is the entire game, start to finish, in ten and a half minutes.



A nerd playing one of my favorite games ever, N.A.R.C.. Check out the flying syringes and GORE!



Holy shit! Someone actually BEAT Battletoads? No fucking way!



Speaking of which, I didn't want to feature any of that lame SUPER Nintendo shit in here, but does anyone else remember the Battletoads & Double Dragon teamup?



This one's for you, RyGar. The final battle and uber-peaceful ending of, um.... Rygar.



Robocop played in its entirety, with only one life. This video is 20 minutes long. Smoke a bowl.



Some freak finishes The Legend of Kage in UNDER 8 minutes. Damn.



The tearjerker twist ending to Ninja Gaiden (Extra points for the girl's name being "Sea Swallow" -- hehe).



Golgo 13 gets lucky (sorry about the cheezy voice-over).



The last 3 minutes (if you're high on meth) of Bionic Commando. Witness the exploding head of zombie Hitler at 1:30. Epic.



Added bonus: 100 NES games in 10 minutes!



I could go on and on and on and on... Fuck you, YouTube!

This might need to be a multiple-part series...


Above: This thing actually works. Below: So does this.

POLISH HOME VIDEO COVERS, PART 2

Check out Part 1 four posts ago. Check out the rest of Krystian Kudja's amazing VHS collection here.

PROG BLOG WEDNESDAYS, PART 13

This week: FAUST - SELF-TITLED (1971)


Before the term "krautrock" ever became synonymous with pretension and chin-stroking hipsterism, before the term "experimental music" became interchangable with "consumer fraud" (my apologies to Men's Recovery Project for phrase theft), before writing a song titled "Why Don't You Eat Carrots?" was a BAD idea, there was Faust. Faust was experimental and groundbreaking in the best possible way, writing music from completely outside the box and throwing all the conventions of "popular" music right out the fucking window. Even their packaging was an experiment. Their self-titled debut album was pressed on clear vinyl and shipped in a clear sleeve (above), with nothing but the band's name and an X-Ray of a human fist ("Faust" is German for "fist", hence "faustficken") printed in black on the front.
The music contained herein is a bad acid trip wrapped up in a surrealistic nightmare, claustrophobically packed with droning electronics, meandering piano passages, and weird, chanting vocal loops that will not allow you to sleep at all tonight. Only 3 songs on this one (8 minutes, 9 and a half minutes, and almost 17 minutes, respectivley), but they are all filled with enough ideas, riffs, and off-the-wall hooks to keep you confused for weeks to come. Don't let the hipsters ruin this one for you. Epic, dark, and even a little goofy. 10/10.

Download HERE
Purchase (for pretty cheap, and packaged with their second album, too) HERE

THE BALLAD OF JAR JAR BINKS

O Jar Jar, lonesome, loathsome beast,
With natty dreads and ducklike beak,
Sad son of Gunga, long forlorn,
Objectified and heaped with scorn,
When Boss Nass mocked you, watched you cry,
Rastaman, Selassie I,
The swamps ran cold, we all wept too,
And darkness fell upon Naboo.

Padme's ally, Qui-Gon's bane,
On Tatooine's vast sandy plain,
With vanquished droids, your people freed,
A legacy of unsung deeds,
Your triumph lost upon deaf ears,
Your legend soiled down through the years,
Otoh Gunga's bastard son,
Long forsaken, hated, done.

For many were the critics' jeers,
They stung upon your floppy ears,
And settled like a crown of thorns,
O Dark pariah, Lucas-borne,
To walk, a ghost, obscured from sight,
Alone into that long, dark night,
Tarnished, broken, beaten down,
A king remembered as a clown.

In life-debt bound to Jedi Lords,
In death, a joke by all accords,
Slandered warrior, sadness wrought,
Upon thy head in word and thought,
The fools who spit upon your creed,
Know not your valiant acts at Theed,
Or Coruscant, The Great Grass Plains,
All epic battles fought in vain.

So as the eons carry on,
And push about their helpless pawns,
Remember Jar Jar, lonesome beast,
And shed a tear or two, at least,
No menace here, but phantom? Yea,
The sadness which his eyes betray,
I care not what the fanboys think,
... Meesa miss you, Jar Jar Binks.

This couplet brought to you courtesy of Illogical Contraption Recombinant DNA Labs, Inc. and the good people at the Jar Jar Binks Appreciation Society.

ENNIO MORRICONE - THE THING SOUNDTRACK (1982)

John Carpenter obviously has no problem with scoring his own films. Halloween, Halloween II, They Live, Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China, and The Fog (among others) all contained brilliant musical input from Mr. Carpenter, and were better movies for it. But his greatest film, in my humble opinion, was 1982's The Thing, a gory sci-fi masterpiece starring Carp's man-muse of the time, Kurt Russell, in an epic battle to the death with an angry unfrozen shapeshifting alien.

But Carp didn't do the soundtrack for The Thing. Oh no. He enlisted the talents of one of the all-time great film composers, the one and only Ennio Morricone. Morricone built his legacy producing reverbed-out music for spaghetti westerns in the 60's, but by the late 70's he had branched out into giallo, horror, and sci-fi films as well. His compositions became a bit more accessible and classical/jazz influenced (see White Dog), but his vision never faltered, and his catalog remains chock full of solid classics throughout the decades. His work on The Thing may not be his all-time best, but it's still some powerful stuff, creepy and suspenseful in all the right places before swelling to a triumphant crescendo. Absolutely wonderful sci-fi/horror accompaniments. Goldsmith would be proud.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE

Below: The man, the myth, the pimp.



Trailer:



A sweet poster:

POLISH HOME VIDEO COVERS, PART 1

As Sr. del Tigre pointed out a couple weeks ago, Poland has a certain knack for re-packaging and/or re-imagining art from European and American films. As further proof, I present the following -- A veritable cornucopia of fantastic imagery culled from the Flickr page of one "Krystian Kudja". Again, Illogical Bro Cory brought this one to my attention, and I can't thank him enough. Mr. Kudja's collection contains scans of almost 900 (!) home video covers, most of them Polish re-issues and ALL of them 1000% AWESOME. His site is a great place to piddle away a couple hours of your time if you're an 80's/90's B-movie buff, chock full of unknown, forgotten, and ridiculous gems from some of cinema's finest moments.
I'm going to break this post into two parts (20 images today and 20 tomorrow), as the sheer amount of ass-kicking contained herein will probably be a bit too much to digest in only one sitting. These are what I believe to be the 'greatest hits' of his collection, but by all means go check the WHOLE THING out yourself. You will not be disappointed.