Analog Medium

Midiroket - Pro Gamer

2011-12-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

Music by Midiroket - http://soundcloud.com/midiroket +
Mixed by Mehmet Yaranona +
Mastered by Stellar Kinematics - http://www.stellarkinematics.com/ +
Video by Max Capacity + Mister Scradam - http://maxcapacity.tumblr.com/ + http://scradam.tumblr.com/ +

Happy Halloween 2011 from Analog Medium by Mister Scradam

2011-11-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween 2011 from Analog Medium by Mister Scradam

Midiroket - Nightflight

2011-07-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

Music by Midiroket - http://soundcloud.com/midiroket +
Mixed by Mehmet Yaranona +
Mastered by Stellar Kinematics - http://www.stellarkinematics.com/ +
Video by Max Capacity - http://maxcapacity.tumblr.com/

Crashfaster - Grind

2011-07-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

music by Crashfaster http://crashfaster.com from the album disconnect http://crashfaster.bandcamp.com/album/disconnect +
video by Max Capacity http://maxcapacity.tumblr.com

Zombies on Broadway (1945)

2011-05-25T19:06:00.000-07:00

Review by The Silver Screen Kid

Well sir, zombies are a funny bunch of undead trouble-makers. They’ve gone back and forth from the fringe of popular culture so many times, how are you supposed to know whether zombies are hip or not? After their first appearance on the big screen, it took them about 80 years to break into syndicated television (The Walking Dead on AMC). But it took zombies just over a decade to make it to Broadway. Or, at least close to Broadway.

Zombies on Broadway, released in 1945, is somewhat of a misnomer. First of all, there’s mostly only one zombie on screen at a time. Secondly, the majority of the film takes place on a phony voodoo island called San Sebastian (I guess Haiti sounded too foreign for audiences back then?). The scenes that are set in New York revolve around a crummy OFF-Broadway nightclub, called The Zombie Hut, owned by a former mobster wise-guy. His advertising gimmick for the new club: opening night will feature a real, living-dead zombie. Only problem is, he doesn’t have one. So he sends his press agents to retrieve one for him. The deal: come back with a zombie, or else.

Have you ever seen the type of 1940’s tongue-in-cheek comedy in which every character spits out lines like a fast talking career guy? They speak in puns, and everything is so watered down that mobsters are reduced to using a joy buzzer as an intimidation method? If so, then you’ve already seen this movie, don’t bother. However, for the zombie completest, there are few interesting points to Zombies on Broadway. The zombies in the film fall into the murky transition area between traditional voodoo zombies and modern day rotting undead. They represent a time in zombie history before Romero had laid down the law, and people sort of bullshitted a creature together with no make-up except for bugged out eyes. You can totally sense the potential in the medium before it actually developed. And, in the end, there are a couple honest chuckles to be had here (not just at the film’s expense, mind you). My favorite comes at the end. One of the two press agents is turned into a zombie, so they beat a hasty retreat to the States. He’s taken to the club to be presented as the main attraction, but a cute chorus-line girl smiles at him from her dressing room and he snaps out of it. Classic. Back then, all it took to cure the zombie curse was a boner. Or, at least half a boner.

Teletext Art

2010-12-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

Unearthed by our resident guru, Prosthetic Knowledge, Teletext is set to go completely extinct in 2012 as the UK transitions to digital broadcast and forsakes Teletext technology. The big victim will be Ceefax, the venerable information retrieval service offered by the BBC. In hopes of reviving the medium as an art form (which has been done, see the links), Prosthetic Knowledge, Max Capacity, and our friend, V5MT have been playing with CebraText, a software based Teletext editor, to create some new stuff. The eventual goal is to actually create some sort of revived Teletext art service, whether via the internet or even localized to a single location and television.

Teletext (or "broadcast teletext") is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules. Subtitle (or closed captioning) information is also transmitted in the teletext signal, typically on page 888[1] or 777. (Wikipedia)

If you'd like to try it out yourself, check out MicroTel, an older Teletext art project that was broadcast in the Netherlands a few years ago. There you can download CebraText and give it a shot. And if you get really into it, you can help us figure out how to present our (hopefully) revived medium.

Happy Halloween from Analog Medium

2010-10-31T10:49:00.000-07:00

Pixelqatsi by Prosthetic Knowledge

2010-09-21T10:34:00.000-07:00

Experiment in converting film into style of an 8-bit computer (the Commodore +/4). This is a scene from the fantastic ‘Koyaanisqatsi’, an influential photographic film, with music composed by Phillip Glass. This is part of the urban section.

Analog Medium brain, Prosthetic Knowledge has been hard at work converting frames of video back to Commodore +/4 format. The results are posted on his Commodore +/4 blog, plus slash four, along with more +/4 conversion work. It's like a future that never happened.

prostheticknowledge.tumblr.com
plusslashfour.tumblr.com
plusslashfour.tumblr.com/post/1157310674
http://plusslashfour.tumblr.com/post/1157297181
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Glass

Rice Tastes Good!

2010-09-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

Rice Tastes Good! by Mister Scradam

GLI.TC/H CHICAGO

2010-09-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

GLI.TC/H
SEP 29 - OCT 3, 2010
CHICAGO
HTTP://GLI.TC/H

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKTezKH_l48
http://vimeo.com/14849437
http://max.analogmedium.com/2010/09/glitch-bump.html

BMX Bandits (1983) Review

2010-09-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

Review by Silver Screen Kid

80’s movies are some of the raddest movies ever made. BMX Bandits is high on my list for the raddest of the rad. This flick has radical oozing out of its overly saturated celluloid pores. It probably taught a whole generation of Aussies the meaning of the word “rad”. Or whatever the Australian equivalent for “rad” might have been back then. A super-thin plot line involving gangsters and stolen American walkie-talkies strings together 88 minutes of kid friendly BMX mayhem, including an epic escape down water slides with bikes in tow. Nicole Kidman is the lead female. She speaks in an Australian accent and looks like Jane Fonda. I especially enjoy the implied potential for a teenage three-way between Kidman and the two male leads. Those Aussies sure knew how to make movies back in the day. Everything from the opening title and theme song, through the climactic showdown and resulting off-road rally is designed to blow the minds of young BMX gromits from the 80’s. Nowadays it’s hella fun to laugh at.

BMX Bandits on Wikipedia
BMX Bandits on IMDb
“BMX” by The Papers (BMX Bandits theme song) on Discogs

All-City Arson: Botnet v1.3 Video by Max Capacity

2010-08-24T02:17:00.000-07:00

Botnet v1.3 by All-City Arson

panicinpodsix.com
youtube.com/watch?v=Z8Q9E5s9dYE
youtube.com/user/analogmedium

Video by Max Capacity
flavors.me/maxcapacity
vimeo.com/maxcapacity

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy VHS GIFs by Max Capacity

2010-07-19T23:32:00.000-07:00

Max Capacity: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy GIFs

Flickr: Max Capacity's Photostream
Flickr: Max Capacity: Animated VHS
Flickr: Max Capacity: Animated GIFs
maxcapacity.tumblr.com

Happy St. Patrick's Day from ANALOG MEDIUM

2010-03-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day from ANALOG MEDIUM by The Silver Screen Kid

Analog Medium Gear by Max Capacity

2010-03-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

Max Capacity has been hard at work in the pixel mines and has supplied us with a new batch of pixel art for our Analog Medium gear. We've got grim reapers, evil men, space krakens, immolation, skeleton pirates, zombies, and the demon lord, Baphomet. Have a look!

Die Antwoord - Zef Side

2010-02-09T13:37:00.000-08:00

Die Antwoord - Zef Side (Official)

More Videos:
Take No Prisoners - Interview with Die Antwoord
Taxijam presents Die Antwoord

More Links:
dieantwoord.com
Vice Magazine
Reuters Africa

Golgo 13: The Mafat Conspiracy (NES 1990) Game Genie Codes

2010-01-31T11:33:00.000-08:00

The Mafat Conspiracy (ゴルゴ13 第二章イカロスの謎, Gorugo Sātīn Dai-Nishou Ikarosu no Nazo, Golgo 13 Episode 2: The Riddle of Icarus)

GXOGZZVG - Infinite bullets
IASGUSZA - Fewer bullets picked up
GPSGUSZA - More bullets picked up
GZNGOTOY - Immune to physical damage
GZOKSSON - Immune to weapon damage
GXNGPOSN - Immune to damage in maze
XTNIVXXK - Stop timer
AZNIEXGL - Faster timer
AYNIEXGL+AYVISXGL - Slower timer

Sources: GameFAQs, GameGenie.com

Wu-Tang vs. The Beatles - Enter the Magical Mystery Chambers

2010-01-27T18:36:00.000-08:00

From Tea Sea Records:

Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers is a remix album using Wu Tang acapellas on Tom Caruana beats that sample Beatles songs.

Check it out at Tea Sea Records. Logan Walters designed the rad cover art. You may remember his Wu-Tang Blue Note album covers.

UPDATE: Instrumentals and Radio Edits are now available for download, too.

Source: peshea

The Man with the Iron Fist (2010)

2010-01-22T13:22:00.000-08:00

RZA's working with Eli Roth to write, score, and direct his own movie, The Man with the Iron Fist, with Roth as producer. This is going to be great. RZA's been working in movies for a minute now, and he's an O.G. Kung Fu flick aficionado. If you're also a martial arts fan, you might be familiar with the Wu-Tang Presents series of DVDs. So RZA knows his shit. The question will be whether it all comes together to make a good movie. I'm expecting great things. Check out the The Man with the Iron Fist at IMDb to keep up on the details.

Sources: CHUD, Paste

Late Night Hulu Flicks

2010-01-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Expires: 03/01/2010

American Pop (1981)
Expires: 01/31/2010

Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Expires: 02/01/2010

See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)
Expires: 01/31/2010

Black Dog (1998)
Expires: 03/01/2010

Here's some Hulu movies to watch on the late-night. Like late night cable flicks. Better move fast, all these movies expire by the end of February, and some by the end of January.

UPDATE: And if you watch any of these movies before they expire, tell us what you thought of the movie in the comments section.

Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

2010-01-18T21:33:00.000-08:00

Reposted from October 2006
Review by Asmodeus

aka Le Pacte Des Loups

Straight and simple. Mix the suspense and mystery of The Village with the Count of Monte Cristo’s style and wit, throw in some Asian style camera angles and action, and you have Brotherhood of the Wolf. I first saw this movie when I was in Iraq, and loved every moment of the escapism. The copy I happened to acquire was VCD with English subtitles, as the movie is a French indy film. Fortunately, it has been released to DVD and has been dubbed in English.

The movie follows a French naturalist and his Native American guardian through their trek, alongside the rest of France, to capture and study/kill if need be, a fierce, foreign creature that has been ravaging the country-side. Within 5 minutes of the movie starting a hot French peasant gets done in by the creature. At times the movie may crawl a bit (certainly not more than any Shyamalan film), but this is understandable due to the political undertones which this movie must work into existence.

If you crave anime-style fight scenes, intrigue, mystery and tits, this is the movie to curb your appetite. One of the more well known actor/actresses in this movie is Monica Bellushi, who so kindly offers us some obligatory tit shots to keep us watching. Actually there was no real need for tits to keep the audience watching, the mystery surrounding the creature and high doses of volatile action are enough to keep anyone captivated. In my humble opinion, the tits are just a way of saying "thank you" for watching.

NES Circuit Bending

2010-01-17T04:05:00.000-08:00

Max Capacity has been working with circuit bending to create a NES console that glitches the video of the cartridge loaded up. He bridged connections between the pins on the cartridge connector, then wired them to a NES Advantage joystick controller to make the joystick control the glitching.

Max has connected the machine to an array of TVs including a rear-projection TV with the mirror and screen removed to splash the video on to the wall behind the TV array. We're all helping to acquire more old TVs and coax cable to create a real Frankenstein of a video display for Pod Six.

You can keep up with photos of the project on Max's Circuit Bent NES Flickr Set. Or by following Max Capacity on Tumblr.

BAD BOOK // BAD ART

2010-01-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

Untitled collage by BigKilla

There's new stuff in KID EPOXY's BAD BOOK // BAD ART. And we've set up a BAD BOOK Flickr set on the Analog Medium Flickr account to show off some of our favorite stuff that KID EPOXY finds in the trash.

Untitled collage by MaxCapacity

Untitled collage by Master Blasphemy

C.H.U.D. (1984)

2010-01-08T01:51:00.000-08:00

Review by BigKilla

C.H.U.D. also doesn't really stand for what I thought it does. I always thought it was Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller. Which is the initial assumption in the movie. A lot of the movie takes place underground, and involves the homeless that live under the city. And monsters that live in the sewers. Awesome.

After watching C.H.U.D. I wondered why I'd never seen it before. It had a much bigger budget than I expected, and it featured a bunch of actors that I recognized from various movie and television roles. The most recognizable was Harry, the Wet Bandit from Home Alone and the dickhead from Big. It was also less of a horror movie than I expected. It was a little slow and all, but there was enough death and destruction to make up for it. It would make a perfect late night cable movie. It held the attention of myself, Max Capacity, and Emperor Zombie through the duration. And that's saying a lot with our collective A.D.D.

C.H.U.D. (1984) @ Wikipedia
C.H.U.D. (1984) @ Amazon.com
C.H.U.D. II - Bud the Chud (1989) Review

The Omega Man (1971)

2010-01-02T14:09:00.000-08:00

Reposted from August 2005

This movie has it all. Post-apocalypse will be an exciting time. I look forward to blasting mutants from the penthouse of my fortress. Charleton Heston gets to do all the things I fantasize about doing in a post-apocalyptic landscape. Crash your car? No problem, just walk into a car dealership and drive any car right off the lot. There's no one to stop you! Except the mutants. But killing mutants gives you something to do to take your mind off of the stresses of your new life, like never being able to have sex with a woman... ever again.

More:
- Omega Man (1971) @ Wikipedia
- Omega Man (1971) @ IMDb

Merry Xmas from Silver Screen Kid and Analog Medium

2009-12-25T13:14:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X06-FdYA1-0

Atari 2600 Frying with Stella

2009-12-16T14:37:00.000-08:00

Frying is basically connecting a cartridge game so that it doesn't quite work properly. On Nintendo it usually meant a flashing screen and some lovely glitches or a big color field. On oldschool Atari it meant sometimes even being able to still play the game, in a slightly glitched out form. The Stella Atari 2600 emulator has a cool feature that emulates frying an Atari cartridge.

Max Capacity sat down for a little while with the latest version of the Stella Emulator and some Atari roms and emulated frying them to get a bunch of interesting images. They're up on Flickr in Max's Atari Frying set. And you can keep up with Max's projects at maxcapacity.tumblr.com

Braindead aka Dead Alive (1992)

2009-12-06T13:18:00.000-08:00

Reposted from November 2005

This lovely New Zealandish movie, titled Braindead in its home country, redefined zombie movies for me. Zombies aren't always your shuffling, stupid undead. They're also not your genetic/disease mutation that has super-human strength. These zombies were caused by an evil rat monkey from Africa. It bites poor Lionel's beloved mother and she prompty pusses up into a zombie. Did I forget to mention? These are no average dried up corpses. They drip, bleed, ooze, chunk, and all sorts of nasty shit. Once Lionel's mother bites the nurse who comes to help her, a full level 4 epidemic breaks out. Lionel, in the sake of her mother's good name, imprisons the initial seed zombies in the basement using animal tranquilizers, but you know that can't last forever. The zombies even go after each other. This is one of the goriest movies I have ever seen. It takes quite a bit to make the BigKilla cringe from a scene. But I almost did... once. I was loving it though. I never thought a lawnmower could make such an effective weapon against zombies. The special effects are amazing, even by current standards. Dead Alive is fucked up, and I loved it.

- Braindead @ Wikipedia
- Braindead @ IMDB

BBC: Synth Britannia

2009-12-02T12:10:00.000-08:00

Synth Britannia

This is fucking gold. Hit the jump for parts 1-9 embedded from YouTube. The bad news is that for some reason, if you're in the US, you can't watch part 9. What the fuck, BBC?

Documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage.

In the late 1970s, small pockets of electronic artists including the Human League, Daniel Miller and Cabaret Volatire were inspired by Kraftwerk and JG Ballard and dreamt of the sound of the future against the backdrop of bleak, high-rise Britain.
[BBC]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeVRYPjcVXg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4KlnuTeH08

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MSBlLWq1pE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsE5vYcSUTk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JJuNh5LB_s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XzuQOtASjw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eEPVPSEf5k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFgsQ7cKfyk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vtPIUDAPhA

Source: Make

eBoy's New Amnesty International Poster

2009-12-01T16:01:00.000-08:00

eBoy made this great poster for the new Amnesty International campaign, Poverty is Modern. You can go see the full sized version at eBoy Blog or scroll and zoom around it on the Poverty is Modern site. If you're full of cash, buy the poster from eBoy and he'll donate a portion to Amnesty International. And if you're so full of cash, go check out Amnesty International and consider contributing. Or just start an uprising and overthrow your local dictator.

Source: eBoy Blog

Trident Override - Buffalo Holocaust v1.0

2009-11-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

<a href="http://tridentoverride.bandcamp.com/track/buffalo-holocaust-v10-2">Buffalo Holocaust v1.0 by TRIDENT OVERRIDE</a>

Since we haven't had anything fresh for you in a while, we're dropping this Trident Override beat (for the children). It's not quite done... In Pod Six we make everything in versions. Version 1.0 usually means we just laid it out and didn't fuck with it too much. That's the case for Buffalo Holocaust here. It's free for download via Bandcamp, which is a handy new music distribution service. Since we put everything out under a Creative Commons license, feel free to download it and fuck with it. Just give us credit if you publish it, and send us a link so we can post it up!

More Trident Override:
tridentoverride.bandcamp.com
tridentoverride.panicinpodsix.com
panicinpodsix.com

Handpainted Movie Posters from Ghana

2009-11-14T21:46:00.000-08:00

Evil Dead 2

Cujo

Sources: Midnight Showing, Tracker 3

Stan’s Steaks - Un-nation (Panic in Pod Six Remix)

2009-11-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

Stan’s Steaks - Un-nation (Panic in Pod Six Remix)

You may remember our recent post about Stan's Beat Steaks over at The 2nd-Rate. It's a free beat you can do whatever you want with. So down in the depths of Pod Six, Trident Override patched this together using some extra video game samples for flavor. Check it out, and then go download Stan's Beat Steak for yourself, make some shit, and post that shit! And send us and The 2nd-Rate a link.

Zombie Conspiracy by Max Capacity

2009-11-07T19:14:00.000-08:00

Zombie Conspiracy by Max Capacity

Modified from a screenshot from Golgo 13: The Mafat Conspiracy (NES 1990):

Source: pixelstyle

Wu-Note Album Cover Project

2009-11-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

Ghostface Killah - Iron Man by Logan Walters

Check out Logan Walters' re-envisioning of the original Wu-Tang album art as Blue Note album covers. All our favorites are there. We wouldn't mind seeing some special edition vinyl releases with these covers. Except that there's really no need to bother fucking with the first Bobby Digital album cover. C'mon son.

RZA as Bobby Digital in Stereo

Also: Check out some original Blue Note LP covers

Little Nemo: The Dream Master (NES 1990) Game Genie

2009-11-06T02:29:00.000-08:00

aka パジャマヒーロー NEMO (Capcom 1990)

PEKKSZLA - 1 life
TEKKSZLA - 6 lives
PEKKSZLE - 9 lives
SZOKSLVG - Infinite lives
TOKZKNZA - Mega-jump
SXKTGEVK - Infinite 'life'
PEUKOZAA - Start on stage 2
ZEUKOZAA - Start on stage 3
LEUKOZAA - Start on stage 4
GEUKOZAA - Start on stage 5
IEUKOZAA - Start on stage 6
TEUKOZAA - Start on stage 7
YEUKOZAA - Start on stage 8
GESLYPPA + UYUUIOVN - Speed jumps
ZEXLLPPA + SYEUPOVN - Super speed

Source: GameGenie.com

AM Sticker Sightings

2009-11-06T02:01:00.000-08:00

Jeremy Brooks / CC BY-NC 2.0

Flickring ourselves, much like one might Google him/herself, we came to find a treasure trove of photographs of our stickers adorning various objects. We compiled them all into the AM Sightings gallery on Flickr. Maybe you want some free stickers? Maybe you want to take a picture of your stickers and post it up for us? Just saying is all.

Also: Jeremy Brooks @ Flickr

Ed Lover: C'mon Son (Episode 6)

2009-11-02T14:23:00.001-08:00

Ed Lover is a funny, funny man. You gotta check out the rest of the C'mon Son series over at Ed Lover's YouTube account.

Farwell Silver Screen Kid

2009-11-02T13:29:00.000-08:00

The Silver Screen Kid is going to fight aliens on a far away planet. We don't know when or if he will return. The last received communique read:

"So long. Thanks for all the memories. Peace."

We wish him the best in his fight.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T18:01:00.000-07:00

Give us all your candy!

Source: The Creeping Linker, Phantom Spaceman

The 2nd-Rate: Stan's Beat Steaks

2009-10-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

Our friends at The 2nd-Rate have a free beat that they want you to do something with. As they put it:

Beats Steaks are free beats for anyone to do anything with. Like per say add a rap or singing part and maybe some more instrumentation. Or do an interpretive dance and video yourself. Please, we always encourage people to send back what they do with the beat steak.

Head over to The2ndRate.com and download the beat. Just be sure to send them back your interpretive dance video. That sort of thing needs to be shared with the world. If we manage to get off our collective asses and make a fun remix, we'll post it up here.

Source: the2ndrate.com

Packard Jennings' Business Reply Pamphlet

2009-10-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

Someday, Analog Medium will have its own office building. It will be called Pod Six and we'll have a monster living in the trash compactors on the detention level. Now we have a handy guide to follow.

Packard Jennings describes his own project:

This small, sixteen-page pamphlet is produced to put inside the postage-paid, business-reply envelopes that come with junk mail offers. Every envelope collected is stuffed with the pamphlet and mailed back to its original company

Source: SET UP US THE BOMB

Retro Arcade Typefaces

2009-10-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

1989 UPL LIMITED

If you're like us, you're a lot of different kinds of nerd. We're retro videogaming nerds and graphic design nerds. You might have noticed our love of NES title screens. Our friend .tiff is clearly a nerd like us. She works on a sweet blog called Text Adventure that catalogs videogamey typographical delights. She also clued us into this insane Japanese Namco Font Museum (unfortunately not the kind of museum that's in a building).

Max Capacity wants "GAME OVER" tattooed on his forearms. The question is, which font? If you check out the font museum, make a suggestion as to what font Mr. Capacity should immortalize on his body.

Source: tiffchow.typepad.com

Breakthru (NES 1986) Game Genie Codes

2009-10-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

BreakThru (ブレークスルー) - Data East 1986

GZUKYPVG - Infinite lives for both players
GZKSLZVG - Freeze weapon timer
PEUKPZLA - Player 1 start with 1 life
PEKGGZLA - Player 2 start with 1 life
TEUKPZLA - Player 1 start with 6 lives
TEKGGZLA - Player 2 start with 6 lives
PEUKPZLE - Player 1 start with 9 lives
PEKGGZLE - Player 2 start with 9 lives
ZANKLZPA - Start game on level 2
LANKLZPA - Start game on level 3
GANKLZPA - Start game on level 4
IANKLZPA - Start game on level 5
LTUKTLAA - Start each life with 3-way firing and 99 seconds

Source: gamegenie.com

DEATH BY VIDEO - Robocop Fried Chicken Commercial

2009-10-23T19:36:00.000-07:00

Robocop Fried Chicken Commercial

Also check out: Nissin Noodles RoboCop Ad

Source: DEATH BY VIDEO

Mixtape: Little Yellow Man In My Head

2009-10-18T15:37:00.001-07:00

The AM Droogs whipped up this great mixtape here at Pod Six using all vinyl straight to a cassette tape. Then we got a decent digital transfer from the tape and made it into an mp3 for your enjoyment.

Analog Medium Mixtape - Little Yellow Man In My Head
(1:01:07 / 192kbps / 88mb)

A Flock of Seagulls - I Ran
Soft Cell - Tainted Love
David Bowie - Suffragette City
The Damned - Lust For Life
The Kinks - Destroyer
The Clash - Guns On The Roof
The Specials - Nite Klub
The Spits - She Don't Kare
The Kinks - Add It Up
The Cars - Cruiser
Devo - Theme from Doctor Detroit
Styx - Mr. Roboto
The Knack - My Sharona
David Bowie - Hang On To Yourself
The Damned - New Rose
The Spits - Bring
The Specials - A Message To You Rudy

AM Meetup Fall 2009 - Pictures.

2009-10-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

So last weekend was a blast. We're all still kinda recovering (health-wise AND financially). It was a blast. You can see the pictures on the AM Meetup Fall 2009 Flickr set. They're also posted on the Fall 2009 meetup blog for posterity's sake. And don't miss Emperor Zombie's new animated persona.

For everyone who couldn't make it, don't fear. We're going to do it again next March.

Sci-Fi Surf Rock

2009-09-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

Science fiction surf rock is easily the coolest sub-niche of the surf rock revival scene. I've always been a fan of Man or Astro-Man, but I never really tallied up the other science fiction surf bands that are out there. Until now.

I've got links here to buy/listen/research. So be the first kid on your block to impress all your hipster friends with your knowledge of obscure science fiction surf rock.

Daikaiju - Amazon - BlueBeat - Last.fm
Man or Astro-Man? - Amazon - BlueBeat - Last.fm - Wikipedia
The Space Cossacks - Amazon - BlueBeat - Last.fm
Laika & The Cosmonauts - Amazon - BlueBeat - Last.fm - Wikipedia

Heavy Barrel (NES 1990) Game Genie Codes

2009-09-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

Reposted from December 2006
Review by Silver Screen Kid

Heavy Barrel is an A+ shooter that offers tons of special weapons, full 360 degree range of motion, and kick-ass simultaneous two player mayhem. It's the perfect game for anyone who watched Rambo as a kid. Or Commando for that matter. You wade through throngs of henchmen, laying down sheets of automatic weapon-fire and grenade blasts. The secret to success is to never stop chucking grenades. You get 40 per life, so you might as well get rid of as many as possible before biting the dust. Or the Game Genie codes help. The Game took on a whole 'nother dimension when Mark entered the codes for 1+2 player auto-fire and unlimited weapons.

ENSTPVSN - Player one autofire
EYNVINSN - Player two autofire
AEKVXLII - Grenades last 4 times longer
ENVVKLEI - Unlimited grenades
OXVVVLVS - Unlimited firearms grenades
XVKZVEXK - Enemies don't fire handguns
XTOVVEXK - Invincibility and invisibility

Fall 2009 AM Meetup Guide

2009-09-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

The first semi-annual AM Meetup in Santa Cruz, CA is approaching (October 9th-11th), and we've been getting together some guides to Santa Cruz and the Fall 2009 AM Meetup.

So far we've posted up a motel guide, food/liquor guide, points of interest map, and the main event map. Pod Six will probably be littered with droogs sleeping on the floor, so we'll probably be partying at your motel once we clog the toilets at our place. To recap the plan:

Friday Night: We're going downtown to check out a movie or two and get a drink or two while we're at it

Saturday: We're headed over to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk to ride a couple rides and mostly hang out in the arcade.

Saturday Night: The Main Event! We're going to converge on the local pub. There's pinball, billiards, darts, foosball, and free WiFi

Sunday: Enjoy Santa Cruz and the surrounding areas. We'll have a "Points of Interest" map for you to help plan your day.

- Check out the AM Meetup Fall 2009 blog
- RSVP to the Fall 2009 AM Meetup on Facebook
- Email us for more info

AM Monsterfest (Fearfest) 2009 Initial Schedule

2009-09-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

It's become somewhat of a tradition for me to cover the AMC Monsterfest schedule this time of year. Then last year, they changed the name of the game on me, to Fearfest. But we just keep calling it Monsterfest around Pod Six. And Monsterfest it remains.

The official AMC Fearfest site is still showing 2008's info. But the AMC schedule has at least the start of this year's schedule. Notice the Alien marathon and the inclusion of my personal fav, The Return of the Living Dead. Also exciting to see is the Omen (though on the schedule they called it "Backstory") and The Shining. Two of the creepiest movies around. I would also like to state for the record that I demand more Hammer Films!

(All Times Eastern)

Friday - October 23, 2009
8:00p Alien
10:30p Aliens

Saturday - October 24, 2009
1:30a - The Return of the Living Dead
3:30a - The Omen (?)
4:30a - Jack the Ripper
6:15a - The Brain Eaters
7:30a - The Fly
9:30a - Dracula
12:00p - Exorcist: The Beginning
2:30p - Alien
5:00p - Aliens
8:00p - Alien 3
10:30p - Alien Resurrection

Sunday - October 25, 2009
1:00a - Wolf
4:00a - The Beast Must Die
6:00a - The Frighteners
8:30a - Raising Cain
10:30a - Wolf
1:30p - Alien 3
4:00p - Alien Resurrection
6:30p - The Shining

AM Flicks 01

2009-09-18T11:16:00.001-07:00

Max Capacity is archiving his cell phone pics for AM. He's got some weird shit. You can keep up with them on the Analog Medium Flickr stream.

Elsewhere Public Works: The Search for Eva Lucien

2009-09-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

ALTERNATE REALITY ALERT! Alternate Reality Gaming, that is. The Silver Screen Kid is tumbling down the rabbit hole, into the complex and sinister world of ARGs. Apparently I've stumbled onto a particularly roxxers ARG here in my native San Francisco. I started playing without any prior knowledge of the inner workings of the game - I decided to take a leap of faith. SO glad I did. This shit is more fun than a pack of blunts, an ounce, and 30 Wii games. Well, nothing's really more fun than that... :P

But the experience really is indescribable. It makes you feel like you're about to start frying. Excited, a vague sense of dread, and the inescapable sense that you're involved in something you have NO control over. When I previously wrote an article about this ARG for AM, I thought the game might have run its course. Then, lo and behold, I was emailed with a fresh set of instructions. I'm starting to feel like I'm on-call for a psychotic underground society of pop culture insurgents.

Now I've completed the steps laid out in the second set of instructions. I've picked up more working knowledge of what-the-hell I'm involved in. Before, I didn't even know the goal of the game. Now I know I'm on the hunt for one Ms. Eva Lucien, a girl who disappeared without a trace in the late 1980s. One other thing I know for sure this time: it is definitely not over. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.

- The Jejune Institute
- Elsewhere Public Works
- Elsewhere Public Works on Analog Medium - oh, how naive I was when I wrote this, lol
- SPOILER ALERT: Jejune Institute Flickr photo set

ZOMBIE! A New Musical (2009)

2009-09-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

I constantly struggle with the dark heart beating at the core of my being. That dark heart pumps out a lot of toxic shit - like concentrated, liquid laziness. Whether it's a learned habit, or bred into me, I don't know - but I definitely have a tendency to slack off. Out of all the rad shit I've slept on, I'm especially ashamed of sleeping through the entire first run through of ZOMBIE! A New Musical.

One of my associates in the amateur video racket here in San Francisco is intimately involved in the production. Reverand Luke, whom I had the pleasure of working with on a self-funded zombie short, is the mastermind behind the stage make-up. Everything about the show sounds enchanting - from the look of the zombies to the metal soundtrack (complete with original lyrics!).

Facebook sez: "A rock/horror/tragicomedy that will eat your face off! Trent and Violet are just two rebellious teens from Colma, CA. That is, until Violet dies and is brought back to life using the Army's secret Zombie Gas! Now Trent's insane Army uncle, a fame hungry reporter, and even Ozzy Osbourne are after them. This hysterical new musical is one part horror movie, one part rock concert, and a 'Whole Lotta Awesome.'"

I'm not completely out of luck, though, and neither are you. I have it on good authority that they will be taking some time off to "re-tool", and they'll be back for an entire month long run in October, culminating with a closing night blow-out on (of course) Halloween! Sounds like a rotten good time.

- ZOMBIE! A New Musical - Official Site
- ZOMBIE! A New Musical on Facebook

Shatterhand (NES)

2009-09-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

Shatterhand by Max Capacity

Source: AM Notebook, Max Capacity

Night of the Comet (1984) Review

2009-08-31T15:26:00.000-07:00

Review by The Silver Screen Kid
Reposted from February 2007

I have a certain affinity for anything made in or around my birth year, 1985. It was the time of Nintendo, Atari, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Transformers. Night of the Comet falls right into that category. Alas, I didn’t know about this gem until late last year. It first came to my attention when a colleague recommended it based on his memory of it from when he was eight. I had to see it. Zombies, cheerleaders, guns, the 80s. That’s all I knew, and it was enough to go on a quest for it. Incredibly, no one has bothered to release it on DVD as of yet. According to my sources, it’s set to be released in the digital realm on March 6th, 2007. I can’t friggin wait. To bide my time I found a long forgotten torrent with one seed and patiently downloaded a VCD rip, probably taken from some ancient VHS copy. Kids, don’t try that at home.

If there was ever a script that deserved a bigger budget than it got, it was Night of the Comet. The dialogue is kick-ass, the plot turns make your head spin, the characters are outrageous, and it is steeped in 80s pop culture. Kick ass all around. The picture starts with the lead, Reggie (a big haired 80s chick), working at a movie theatre where she plays arcade games and screws the projectionist. We jump into the plot on the night a comet is set to pass by the Earth (not unlike Halley’s comet that passed by in 1986). Little do us silly humans know, the radiation from the comet has the power to disintegrate millions of people and turn the rest into zombies. The only survivors are a handful of ridiculously mismatched byproducts of the 1980s, including big-haired Reggie, her half-sister the cheerleader, and a well natured trucker played by Robert Beltran.

I won’t even go into the gritty details of the plot; they’re too delicious to put into words. Take my advice and go out there and get a copy of this flick. Whether it be on VHS or the long-awaited DVD version. You won’t be disappointed. If you want to find out more in the mean time you should check out this intense fan site I found while doing a little research: www.nightofthecomet.info. It goes so far as to offer pictures of the locations they filmed scenes in so you can see how they look today. That’s web 2.0 baby, takin' over.

BAD BOOK // BAD ART - August 2009

2009-08-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

NEAR. by KID EPOXY

KID EPOXY has expanded the scope of his project, BAD BOOK // BAD ART. In his words:

"BAD BOOK is a collection of bad/found/trash art collected around Pod Six, the Analog Medium HQ, and compiled by KID EPOXY of Analog Medium."

The Venture Bros. Season 4 Trailer

2009-08-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, Patrick Warburton is still going to be playing Brock!

- Link to the video
- Also check out The Venture Bros. Comic-Con Panel '09 talking about Season 4 and the rest

The Hanging Woman (1973) Review

2009-08-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

aka La orgia de los muertos

Question: why are some old, low-budget movies replayed thousands of times and revered by millions, while others are left by the wayside, forgotten in the shuffle of international distribution? I could wipe my ass with half the movies worshipped by cult-friendly fan-boys - and no one would know the difference. Then there are movies like The Hanging Woman. I couldn't find a trace of this film on DVD (I since found out that the disc will debut September 29th, 2009). I finally found it on VHS at Le Video, the local San Francisco mecca for obscure movies. I didn't expect much of anything, considering there's hardly a mention of the film on the great and plentiful internets. Lemme tell ya - The Hanging Woman is a hot, spicy meatball of a movie.

Fans of Hammer Horror will almost certainly enjoy the style of The Hanging Woman. It's a period piece set in an undated old-timey age, but in Spain instead of England. Every character is costumed, every set-up is painstakingly lit (no matter how cheesy the sets and props look), and every actor takes the term "over-the-top" to glorious new heights. The Hanging Woman even holds an advantage over Hammer, though, IMHO. Nearly every Hammer movie suffers from a severe lack of female nudity. The Hanging Woman has that in spades - even full frontal!

Perhaps the most shocking surprise I found in The Hanging Woman was that the story kept me engaged. There are large doses of Frankenstein and Re-Animator mixed into the recipe. The main character, Serge, and his super-70s haircut arrive in a small country village in order to claim his inheritance from his recently deceased uncle. His inheritance includes a mansion, occupied by a mad scientist working under the patronage of his deceased uncle. The scientist's area of expertise? Re-Animation! You gotta know zombies get involved eventually. Upon Serge's arrival, he discovers... a hanging woman. And shit goes crazy! (eventually) The story is actually quite slow, but boobs and death are sprinkled throughout at satisfactory intervals. The end is quite a rollicking good time, too. Certainly worth the wait. So, in review, here are your reasons to catch this flick when it drops on DVD: boobs, guns, zombies, old-timey science gear, boobs, death, blood, boobs, and zombies. Oh, did I mention boobs and zombies? 'Nuff said.

- Troma announces The Hanging Woman on DVD
- The Hanging Woman on Wikipedia
- Watch the trailer for The Hanging Woman on DEATH BY VIDEO

VIDEO: 8-Bit Trip

2009-08-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

So, we just posted a video the other day. But this is too damn hot to ignore. The description from the YouTube page:

"1500 hours of moving legobricks and take photos of them."

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) End Credits

2009-08-22T00:18:00.000-07:00

The end titles from one of my very favorite movies, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, looks suspiciously like the end titles from The Life Aquatic. But way more funkay. I'm sure I'm not the first to notice it, but it's a great excuse to post this awesome vid.

Gauntlet (NES 1985) Game Genie Codes

2009-08-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

Reposted from November 2006

We didn't get to test these codes on our Game Genie, because it wouldn't work. What a bummer. At least we got really far without them. They sure look like fun though. I wouldn't mind busting on "no damage" and going god-mode through the whole game just to check it out.

OTXSSYSV - no damage from monsters
OTXSSYSV + ZAXSVYAA - less damage from monsters
GGEEEE - walk through walls
ZLVVVIGT - weaker poison
EGVVVIGV - stronger poison
IAUTEUZA - pick up 5 super shots
GPUTEUZA - pick up 20 super shots
AYETVUGU - longer invincibility
LPETVUGU - shorter invincibility
ANNTUXGU - longer repulsion
LONTUXGU - shorter repulsion
AYOTKUGU - longer invisibility
LPOTKUGU - shorter invisibility

Lode Runner (NES 1983) Game Genie Codes

2009-08-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

Reposted from November 2006

The Silver Screen Kid and I were playing Lode Runner tonight and we wanted to see how far we could push it. If I learned anything from the movie Scarface, it was to "Push it to the limit." So we found a bunch of Lode Runner Game Genie codes and a link to a website called the Lode Runner Archive.

GZNGYIVG - Infinite lives
PASKLTIA - Start with 1 life
ZASKLTIE - Start with 10 lives
APOIGPAL - Moonwalk!
GAUGVGYA + AAKGEGGA - Heavy gravity
GXOKIGEY + GXOGTGEY + GZNGLGEY - Become invincible

Trident Override - Diskarmor

2009-08-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

Trident Override - Diskarmor

Check out the first official release from Trident Override on Panic in Pod Six! It's so video-gamey, you might think it's taken right out of an 8-bit Nintendo game. That's because it was made using NES game samples and NES, Gameboy, Commodore, and Atari sounds. You know we like it like that.

Listen:
Trident Override - Diskarmor v1.2
Trident Override - Magnet Beam v1.2

Download:
Trident Override - Diskarmor v1.2
Trident Override - Magnet Beam v1.2

AM Meetup Fall 2009

2009-08-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

Silver Screen Kid and Lax the Stampede @ Pod Six

So we're having a little get-together this October, and everyone's invited. We're having our friends (internet AND "real-life") come in from out of town and hang out in Santa Cruz with us. We've got a basic schedule down, and we'll have more details to come. We also plan on making a little guide to Santa Cruz, AM-style, with places to stay and things to do when you're not in the arcade or at the bar with us.

The plan so far:

Friday, October 9th
Since people will still be arriving in town Friday and even Saturday, we're going to provide a schedule to all the movies in town Friday night. We'll also have our guide to getting to Santa Cruz, where to stay in Santa Cruz, what liquor stores to shop at, and where to park so as not to get a ticket.

Saturday, October 10th
During the day, we're going to be hanging out around the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (featured in The Lost Boys and Attack of the Killer Klowns), at the arcade and the adjacent bowling alley. Also adjacent are the beach and the wharf with a bunch of bars and restaurants. Saturday evening around 8pm we're going to head to the local neighborhood pub for the main event where we invite all our guests to hang out and play some Foosball and have some pints with us until they kick us out around 2 AM.

Sunday, October 11th
Anyone still in town can check out the beach, or do whatever. Santa Cruz is a great town and there's plenty to do. And our handy AM Guide to Santa Cruz will show you how to live like an AM Droog. Maybe go to the Bigfoot Museum in the nearby mountains?

- Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk on Wikipedia

Zombie Strippers! (2008) Review

2009-08-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

The Silver Screen Kid has a girlfriend. Thems the facts. Sorry, internet floosies - I'm taken. My girlfriend constantly impresses me with the range of movies she's willing to watch. Like when she agreed to watch Zombie Strippers! Omfg, I didn't think she would sit through the first five minutes. Lo and behold, 94 minutes later she was groaning and shaking her head, reaching for her Us magazine, but she was still watching. Plenty of better movies have driven her to unplug, tune out, and turn off. I guess she couldn't look away from the uber-ridiculous trainwreck that is Zombie Strippers!

One thing I didn't expect to see at the start of a movie called Zombie Strippers!: political satire. Wtf? Are you joking? Apparently the writers were joking - the first 15 minutes of the movie are laced with assinine jokes about bird flu, GW Bush, etc. Wait a minute... this movie was released in 2008. Who gave a fuck at that point? No one knew who was going to be president after that, but it damn sure wasn't going to be Bush. After the first nonsensical 15 minutes of utter tripe, the plot drops a zombie-infected character into an underground nightclub, where he proceeds to bite the shit out of a stripper. She proceeds to... strip. Straddling a brass pole is not the first thing I would want to do after experiencing the afterlife, but I guess that's why strippers are great.

There was a huge disconnect between what I was thinking while watching Zombie Strippers!, and what I was telling my gf. Anyone who watches movies like this with their significant others knows what I'm talking about. Saline-injected, blonde Jenna Jameson struts her shit down the runway in a corsette and grabs a brass pole... what do I think? Something along the lines of "I have a pole she could grab". What do I say? "This is terrible - the composition is completely uninspired and the lighting is all wrong". So, I thought I might offer two condensed reviews of Zombie Strippers! - one for what my girlfriend would find acceptable, and one for what I really think.

The Good SSK sez:
Through a laughably thin plot, the viewer is exposed to an illegal strip joint that enjoys success after its dancers are infected with a zombie virus spawned from chemical weapons. Something about a group of sweaty dudes paying money to get sexually frustrated in a room together - makes me not want to go to a strip club OR watch Zombie Strippers!

The Real SSK sez:
A zombie infects a stripper at an underground strip club, who spreads the disease to her busty cohorts, turning it into the hottest night spot to go to for zombie felatio. There were a few chuckles, and just enough quality T&A in Zombie Strippers! to make me temporarily forget the writing was rotting my brain.

Both are accurate, but the truth is somewhere in between.

- Zombie Strippers! on Wikipedia

Black Magic II (1976) Review

2009-08-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

aka Gou hun jiang tou
aka Revenge of the Zombies

I stumbled upon Black Magic 2 whilst searching the archives of a local independent video store for rare zombie flicks on VHS. I was actually looking for the 1943 film Revenge of the Zombies directed by Steve Sekely for Monogram Pictures Corp (if anyone out there knows where to find it, drop me a line!). What I actually found was a fairly impressive example of Hong Kong horror, produced by the infamous and legendary Run Run Shaw for the Shaw Brothers. Black Magic 2 was originally released as Gou hun jiang tou, which literally translates as "Bewitched Tame Head". I haven't seen any of the other editions of the "Bewitched Tame Head" series, but based on the strength of this film, I'm totally down.

The Shaw Brothers occupy a special pinnacle of Hong Kong filmmaking. To put it simply, they did more with less. There's plenty of ingenious low budget magic on display in Black Magic 2. There's something super fresh about the spells and sorcery on display in the film. Part of the appeal was doubtlessly the cultural distance - I'm used to Merlin-magic and Houdini-magic. I've barely even touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Chinese peasant magic. That shit's hard as coffin nails. Literally! The black mage in this movie sinks huge nails into the skulls of recently deceased corpses, sprays some blood on the body, then brings them back to life to do his bidding. Definitely one of the most unique and fascinating zombie origins I've seen on film.

The movie as a whole is somewhat hard to watch - due to the grainy, cropped VHS transfer and the 70s Hong Kong butcher-shop editing. Still, there are countless scenes that make it worth the trouble. There's more bad ass magic in there than just the zombies - but I won't ruin it. Suffice if to say it has an insanely cool battle between the black mage and a white mage. Hella inventive. There were some sexy-ass scenes in there too - one that qualifies for the Big List o' Zombie Porn! ;) You'll just have to watch to see what I'm talking about.

P.S. A bit of trivia for all you hip-hop nerds out there: music from this movie has been sampled in TWO major songs! "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" by the Beastie Boys sampled some funky grooves from a nightclub dance sequence, and "Unpredictable" by the Wu-Tang took a loop from one of the songs in the soundtrack. Bad ass!

- Watch the trailer on DEATH BY VIDEO

The Horror of Party Beach (1964) Review

2009-08-07T15:01:00.000-07:00

I found The Horror of Party Beach in the same way I've found countless other films - by looking for zombies. The Horror of Party Beach was severely lacking in zombies, but I found it to be fairly entertaining, none-the-less. The Horror of Party Beach is a classic tale about mutated sea monsters that spawn when sunken human remains are exposed to radioactive chemical waste. The sea monsters in the film originate from human remains, so I can understand the zombie confusion. Also, the working title for the film was Invasion of the Zombies (guess they realized they couldn't justify that name for the release of the movie). However, I assure you, The Horror of Party Beach is NOT a zombie flick, no matter what Netflix would have us think.

Still, I have to give it up for the movie. It gets major awesome points just for the name alone: The Horror of Party Beach. Any word that isn't "The" or "of" is pure awesomeness. There were some other major contributing factors to the awesomeness as well. Big credit goes to the bevy of beautiful bikini clad beach babes shaking their asses to surf rock. Not only that, for one hilariously entertaining scene those luscious tarts were swinging their hips to a song called "Zombie Stomp", played by the Del-Airs. Probably another reason this movie was misfiled under "Z". Along with the countless beach bitches, viewers of the Horror of Party Beach get exposed to such awesomeness as: greasers, motorcycles, surfers, sea monsters, corpses, cheesy fight coreography and funky explosions. Gotta love it.

This is the second film I've watched by horror auteur Del Tenney (the previous one being I Eat Your Skin, aka Zombie Bloodbath). Now that I've witnessed his style on a couple different occasions, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that Del Tenney is totally rad. It's obvious he was having fun behind the camera, and his movies never seem to take themselves TOO seriously. There's enough of an honest attempt at horror to keep me engaged, but the films are ludicrous genre-friendly popcorn flicks, and he knew that. It's refreshing to watch a crappy movie from the 60s that knows it's a crappy movie from the 60s. These are the films I live for.

- The Horror of Party Beach on Wikipedia

Panic in Pod Six! Update

2009-08-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

Check out Analog Medium's music net-label, Panic in Pod Six! All produced right here in AM's HQ, Pod Six, in geosynchronous orbit above Santa Cruz, CA.

- New All-City Arson beat: 07-02-09b v1.2

- New Trident Override track in-progress: 08-01-09b v1.1

- Panic in Pod Six! on Last.fm - Stream all our official releases for free.

- Panic in Pod Six! on SoundCloud - Mixes and randomness, but only a limited amount each month.

The Top 100 Movie Killers

2009-08-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

Over at the Only Good Movies Blog, they've compiled a list of the top 100 movie killers. It's not so much ranked as categorized into brackets like "foreign killers, masked killers, female killers, supernatural killers," and so on. Each entry has a link to an article mentioning the killer or reviewing the movie featuring the character. The best part about their list? They included Leslie Vernon from Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon and linked to our review.

- Top 100 Movie Killers @ OnlyGoodMovies.com

Coming Attractions: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2009)

2009-07-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

Bubbling into stores 9/15/2009

If you're from the internet, you've probably already heard of the delicious bit of pulp genre mashing called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It was "written" by Seth Graham-Smith and released in April 2009 by Quirk Books. Analog Medium wholly endorses this type of public domain re-appropriation, especially when mixed with fan friendly genre icons like zombies and ninjas. Give the people what they want!

A new Jane Austen adaptation is on the chopping block over at Quirk Books. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is set to hit shelves in September of this year. If the book is anything similar to the book trailer that's now soaking up hits on youtube, I'm sold, no questions asked. LMAO.

In the meantime, stay tuned to the internet for news about the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies film adaptation. Wikipedia sez: "At a book-signing Q & A held at California State University Fullerton on April 23, 2009, Grahame-Smith reported that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies had now officially been purchased by an undisclosed major film company to be produced as a feature film." Prissy Brits bitten in half by the rotting dregs of society, all in glorious Technicolor? Count me in.

- Seth Graham-Smith on Wikipedia
- Pride & Prejudice & Zombies on Wikipedia

Rome Against Rome (1964) Review

2009-07-27T12:45:00.000-07:00

aka Roma contro Roma, aka War of the Zombies

Let it be known: Netflix lies! Sure, a few discrepancies here and there are understandable. It's a powerhouse site thick with information. But why lie to us gullible, impressionable zombie fans? The Netflix synopsis for Rome Against Rome contained the word zombie not once, but twice. AND it was listed under the Zombie sub-genre. I'll save you the time I wasted watching it... Rome Against Rome has GHOSTS, not ZOMBIES, dammit. The undead Roman soldiers weren't even corpeal. Once the magic influence of the cyclopic god of gold was broken, they vanished into thin air. No earthly remains. I think the confusion originates from one of the alternate USA release titles: War of the Zombies. What kind of zombie doesn't leave a corpse?

That said, Rome Against Rome wasn't completely terrible. It's essentially Italy's answer to the Hollywood epics that were getting pumped out and shipped overseas at the time. (It's name is suspiciously close to USA poster title for Spartacus - Spartacus: Rebel Against Rome). There were generally some impressive sets and costumes throughout, a couple memorable optical effects, and a few entertaining battle sequences sprinkled in for good measure. Still, it's one of those oldschool flicks that suffers from a severe lack of engaging rhythm. Stare at the screen long enough and you will be hypnotized by its sleepy, crawling pace. Maybe a good substitute for Ambien, but ultimately not worth the watch. Go rent Spartacus instead.

- Preview Rome Against Rome on DEATH BY VIDEO

Bizarro Monday: Kavinsky - Testarossa Autodrive

2009-07-27T11:36:00.000-07:00

Kavinsky - Testarossa Autodrive (Official Video)

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

2009-07-24T14:48:00.000-07:00

Monkey Island fans, today you are my favorites. If it weren't for legions of Monkey Island fans like myself (and to a broader extent, adventure gaming fans), Lucas Arts would have just let Guybrush Threepwood rot. But things are different in this post-post-modern wild-west that is the internet. Angry nerds have a voice now. And that voice is shrill and demanding.

Lucas Arts has re-released The Secret of Monkey Island. First brought forth for MS DOS and then eventually for Sega CD (which was the platform I first completed the game on). I had been using crazy DOS emulators to run my old Monkey Island 2 floppies. Now I have faith in the system again. The Secret of Monkey Island has been re-released with updated graphics and full voice-over audio. The very BEST part is, you can play the original version of the game any time. Not just that, you can switch back and forth during play!

Also worth noting is that Lucas Arts has re-released several other classic adventure games, like The Dig, LOOM, and the Indiana Jones games. Can Monkey Island 2 be far off? Or Sam and Max? What I'd REALLY love to see is other game companies reviving their old franchises. I'll buy. I'd love to see Sierra's Quest for Glory and King's Quest series again. I never got to play Quest for Glory from the beginning to the end because I could never import my character into a reliable copy of Quest for Glory 2. I never got to play that game. Maybe now though, I once again have a reason to hope.

- Check out the game on Steam (9.99 digital download, I'm there!)

Shadowrun (SEGA 1994) Map - Ares System

2009-07-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

So Blasphemy and I have been working on this map, you may remember the map we made of Ito's System a long time back. We also promised to map out all the systems in the game. Finally we've got the second installment. Ares Weapons system has lots of Tar Pits between the System Access Node and the CPU. The map might be a slight bit confusing, but it reads left to right, top to bottom, and we've grouped it by row. Also, the nodes of interest are in bold.

01 - DS - RED-6 - Black Ice 8 - [Legal Files]
02 - DS - ORANGE-6 - Blaster 7 - [Management Files]
03 - IOP - ORANGE-5 - Killer 8 - "Terminal"

04 - SPU - RED-6 - Access 8 / Black Ice 8 - "Office Mangmnt"
05 - SPU - ORANGE-4 - Barrier 7 / Blaster 7 - "Data Routing"
06 - SPU - RED-5 - Barrier 8 / Tar Pit 8 - "Retail Control"
07 - DS - RED-4 - Killer 8 / Tar Paper 8 - [System Files]

08 - SM - GREEN-4 - Blaster 7 - "HVAC Systems"
09 - IOP - ORANGE-5 - Barrier 8 / Black Ice 7 - 3rd Floor Matrix Jack
10 - DS - RED-6 - Black Ice 8 / Tar Paper 8 - [Security Files]
11 - SM - ORANGE-6 - Access 8 / Blaster 7 - "Automtd. Equip"

12 - DS - GREEN-4 - Trace & Dump 7 - [Outdated Files]

13 - SPU - ORANGE-5 - Trace & Burn 7 - "Data Routing"
14 - SPU - RED-5 - Killer 8 / Tar Pit 8 - "Research"
15 - IOP - ORANGE-4 - Trace & Burn 8 - "Matrix Jack"

16 - SM - ORANGE-5 - Killer 8 - "Elevator Control"
17 - SM - GREEN-4 - Barrier 6 - "Automtd. Equip"
18 - DS - RED-5 - Blaster 9 / Tar Pit 9 - [Project Files]

19 - CPU - RED-7 - Black Ice 8 / Tar Pit 8
20 - DS - RED-6 - Barrier 8 / Black Ice 8 - [Confidential Data]

21 - SM - ORANGE-6 - Access 9 / Killer 8 - "Cameras"
22 - IOP - GREEN-5 - Killer 6 - 1st Floor Terminal

23 - SM - RED-5 - Killer 7 - "Alert Control"
24 - SPU - RED-6 - Barrier 8 / Tar Pit 8 - "Security"
25 - SPU - ORANGE-5 - Blaster 7 - "Data Routing"
26 - SAN - ORANGE-4 - Blaster 7 / Tar Paper 7

27 - SPU - RED-6 - Blaster 8 / Tar Pit 8 - "Security"
28 - IOP - RED-5 - Trace & Burn 7 - 4th Floor Matrix Jack
29 - SM - RED-4 - Access 7 - "Security Control"
30 - SM - RED-7 - Barrier 7 - "Maglocks"

We're not sure about all of the security Slave Modules (SM), but several of them do control the functions of the building if you're inside when you access the system. We didn't try out every one of them, but Cameras, Maglocks, and Alert Control slave modules seem to work. But don't forget, if you get to the CPU you can shut down the alert or just crash the system and shut down all the security systems in the building.

Also:
- Shadowrun on Analog Medium
- Shadowrun (SEGA 1994) Map - Ito's System

DEATH BY VIDEO: July 2009

2009-07-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

- Check out this rare Star Wars drunk-driving PSA from 1979

- Remember that Tarantino flick, Jackie Brown with Pam Grier? Well they watch a vid called Chicks Who Love Guns (or something like that)

- While the mood's right after watching that last vid, here's The Commodores on Soul Train in 1974 performing "Machine Gun"

- While we're on that theme, check out Talking Heads play Psycho Killer on something called the Olde Grey Whistle Test in 1978.

- And after all the drunk driving, machine guns, and psycho killers, you're probably stacking up dead bodies super quick. So zombify them! Evil Nine - They Live!

Elsewhere Public Works

2009-07-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

Ever heard of "alternate reality gaming"? Wikipedia defines the term as "an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions." The shorthand way of saying that is "just like that movie The Game with Michael Douglas."

And just like good ol' Mikey D, the Silver Screen Kid resides in San Francisco. Now we have another thing in common - we've both played a real world game set in San Francisco. I'm deep into my game (i think?) and I'm not even sure what to call it. Elsewhere? Nonchalance? Either way it's a whacky good time. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

However, I feel it is my duty to offer this disclaimer: I do not condone such trendsetting, mind-bending, kick-you-in-the-ass-it's-that-fun types of games. I'm definitely not recommending that readers of Analog Medium should get involved in said games. So, if you're reading this, and you live in San Francisco or the surrounding environs, whatever you do, DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW. They may lead you further down the rabbit hole than poor Alice could have dreamed during her most eccentric acid trip. Trust me, if you enjoy your life as a normal, DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW. You'll thank me later.

- ElsewherePublicWorks.com
- The Jejune Institute

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009) Review

2009-07-17T23:07:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this review one of two things must have brought you here: a love of Analog Medium, or a love of absurdity ad nauseum. Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus brings the absurd threshold to new, painfully-hilarious levels. If you're still interested after watching the trailer, and you've gone so far as to seek out reviews for it, then MSvGO is for you. If you think you might enjoy seeing a leviathan of a shark chew through the Golden Gate Bridge, or swipe a commercial airliner out of mid-flight, then MSvGO is for you. If you think you might enjoy seeing a behemoth of an octopus pulverize an oil derrick, or swat an F-22 out of the sky, then MSvGO is for you. If you enjoy Lorenzo Lamas or Debbie Gibson, then MSvGO is for you.

I fuckin' loved it. There's something magical about a movie that's not ashamed to be this awful. It's the American equivalent of daikaiju. Each frame is consistently terrible, each actor is gloriously inept, every edit is hacked together, and each 3D-modeled monster is deliciously bargain-basement. To give you some sense of the depths of depravity on display - a couple characters fly into San Francisco International Airport, take a few steps through the parking lot, and end up on a beach lined with palm trees. And I'm pretty sure it was the same beach that was meant to pass for Half Moon Bay a few scenes prior to that. You can thank those irascible devils at The Asylum for bringing us this opus of criminally insane crud.

All schlock swillers out there in Internet land should know the name of The Asylum. They are responsible for producing such direct-to-DVD gems as Transmorphers, I Am Omega, Death Racers, and The Day the Earth Stopped. Which were all released suspiciously close to the release dates of Transformers, I Am Legend, Death Race, and The Day the Earth Stood Still. The Asylum specializes in mockbusters, as some call them. As soon as they catch wind of a new mega-hit movie in the works they rush to poop out a similar yet legally distinct version of the movie, all of which are sure to confuse the uninformed mass that flock to Blockbuster and similar video stores. Not to mention the potential for total market control in places like Kazakhstan. Why do they bother - besides the money? Well, there is no other reason. Mockbusters sell. They need a stroke of dumb-fuck luck to come up with an original concept that sells. Like Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus! Thank you Internet, for making this movie a success. Can't wait for the sequel.

- Watch the trailer on DEATH BY VIDEO
- Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus on Wikipedia
- The Asylum on Wikipedia
- Daikaiju on Wikipedia
- Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus on The Asylum

Dead Snow (2009) Review

2009-07-14T11:35:00.000-07:00

aka Dod sno

There was a time in my life when I never would have expected to describe a movie about Nazi zombies as mediocre, or so-so. But there you have it. Portions of Dead Snow were engaging, entertaining, and downright exciting, but those moments were buried in needless character development, and a bunch of pointless budget-saving shots. They must have needed to pad the run time with uselessly meandering dialogue, cause they obviously spent an ass-load bringing the Nazi zombies to life (and death). That's definitely where Dead Snow shines.

"SSK, how can you rag on a zombie movie for its dialogue when it had so much awesome blood spillage?" Cause I can say whatever I want, dammit! Seriously though, there's something that really irks me about useless characters in horror. Writers often start setting up a character arc, with personality quirks and issues they need to work past, then drop that progression without a moment's notice. In Dead Snow, nothing is changed by the fact that one character is a doctor but can't stand the sight of blood. That gag gets dropped within minutes. One character is a self proclaimed movie geek who rocks a Braindead T-shirt and pontificates about Evil Dead 2. Then he becomes the first to die amongst the ill-fated twenty-somethings. He didn't even have a chance to add priceless movie geek commentary to the zombie attacks! That one really irked me. (Maybe I identified with him a little too much).

Two more gripes: first, the motivation for the zombies existence was paper-thin and highly ridiculous. Remember, if a Nazi zombie attacks you in the Norwegian back country, just give him his gold back. Seriously. And secondly, they didn't even act like zombies! They sure as hell look like zombies from the front, but the actors were not selling it. As soon as they turn their back to the camera there was no way to tell they were supposed to be undead and frostbitten. No lumbering, no shuffling, no stumbling, and fast-as-hell. But all bullshit aside, Dead Snow is worth the watch (if you're a zombie lubber). Gobs of gore, incessant zombie attacks, and some hardcore fight sequences. I will say one thing for the annoyingly bland characters that populate the movie - they ain't pussies. Zombie after zombie is brutally dispatched by a variety of weapons. I was digging the range of zombie deaths on display, especially the extended shot of a zombie skull getting pulverized by repeated hammer blows. I slept well that night, knowing I had witnessed that scene. If it wasn't for some useless plot devices and missed opportunities with the character I would bump this movie up on my list of recommendations. As is stands, I'd say Dead Snow is for zombie-philes only.

PS - This movie made me realize I need to start a running list of movies with Nazi zombies. So far I have Hard Rock Zombies, King of the Zombies, Zombie Lake, and Dead Snow. Which ones am I missing?

- Dead Snow on Wikipedia

River City Ransom (NES 1990) Map

2009-07-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

Reposted from January 2007

click to link to the fullsize scan

Check out this killer map poster scan I found on the old hard drive. I don't know where it came from. And for more River City Ransom goodness, check out the River City Ransom NES review from July 2006.

Droogs: Lax the Stampede and Max Capacity

2009-07-08T22:28:00.000-07:00

Lax the Stampede and Max Capacity
by Lax the Stampede

Check out the official Analog Medium Flickr stream and stay up on our flicks!

Behind the Mask: The Rise and Fall of Leslie Vernon (2006) Review

2009-07-05T23:12:00.000-07:00

There are so few movies that surprise me anymore - old or new. Does anyone else have this problem? I know I'm not alone on this. If there's a great classic I haven't seen, I've at least heard the entire plot and the lessons I'm meant to learn from it. The hidden gems of the low budget world aren't hidden anymore - thanks to the blogosphere, RSS feeds, and Google Reader. And new movies generally just blow. I guess the problem is information overload. I won't watch a movie if I don't know something about it, but as soon as I know something about it, it dampens the experience.

So, I was delighted when I stumbled upon a modern classic. Surfing through Netflix Watch Instantly, making my way through the softcore porn and straight-to-video bullcrap that they stuff it with, I found Behind the Mask: The Rise and Fall of Leslie Vernon. Of course, by writing this review, I'm ruining any chance the reader has of being surprised... fuck it. Behind the Mask is fucking rad! A masterstroke of horror satire, Behind the Mask shows a documentary crew following a would-be serial killer. In their alternate reality, Mike Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger were all real. Leslie Vernon is the next up-and-coming hopeful. The documentary crew follows him as he makes preparations for a night of slashing - playing off all the slasher movie cliches we know and love. The movie becomes something like a text book for the anatomy of a slasher flick.

Nathan Baesal, the lead, sells the shit out of this movie. He acts the main role with more personality than any A-lister could dream of. In certain ways he's very reminiscent of his counterpart in the French film Man Bites Dog, which Behind the Mask was obviously inspired by. I definitely wouldn't say Behind the Mask bit Man Bites Dog, though. The plot devices in Behind the Mask are too clever and original to be labeled as bitten. I don't want to ruin it more than I already have, but I'll simply say the end does not turn out quite how you would expect. If you love horror as much as I do, definitely give this movie a watch. It's my lock of the week.

By the way - if you read this review and still want to be surprised by a good flick, watch Man Bites Dog. Nuff said.

- Behind the Mask: The Rise and Fall of Leslie Vernon on Wikipedia
- The Official Site
- Watch it on Netflix Watch Instantly

All-City Arson @ Pod Six - July 4

2009-06-30T18:32:00.000-07:00

All-City Arson @ Pod Six - Saturday, Jul 4 9PM

All-City Arson from Panic in Pod Six! will be playing their new shit at Pod Six this Saturday night. If you're in town and you know where Pod Six is, come on over. If you're going to be in town and you don't know where Pod Six is, email us: podsix@analogmedium.com. Just be sure to BYOB.

Night of the Creeps on DVD!

2009-06-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

Killer! Night of the Creeps is getting released on DVD! Back in the day I geeked off getting to see it on the big screen at a midnight movie. Now I can watch it at midnight every night. If you act now, you can go on Amazon and vote on which cover will make the final product. Pretty clever, internet. I'm going to have to keep an eye on you!

- Thanks to CHUD.com for the scoop
- Vote on Amazon

Coming Attractions: Alien Prequel

2009-06-29T14:42:00.000-07:00

Another Alien movie... will it happen? Won't it happen? Needless to say, every good geek and nerd out there has already felt the shockwaves that rocked the internet following the announcement by Ridley Scott that he and Tony Scott would be developing and producing another addition to the alien franchise. There's a lot of wild rumor and speculation out there - is it a prequel, is it a "reboot"? Now add to that list of questions: will it happen at all?

Ridley Scott announced earlier this month that his daughter's beau, commercial director Carl Erik Rinsch, had been selected to direct the film. Apparently he's directed some commercials with a "futuristic" flourish to them... and he happens to be boning the guy's daughter. But there's more problems for Rinsch than concerns over nepotism. According to an article on Entertainment Weekly: "Sources at Fox, however, tell EW that the studio is not interested in greenlighting a prequel unless Scott himself directs."

Personally, I would enjoy seeing another Alien film (what is this - number 7???) I never watched the AVP flicks, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first four films. Yes, even the fourth. :P It would be rad to see the origin of the Aliens, as long as it doesn't involve time travel. Hopefully those Hollywood-ers can figure their shit out and make this happen. I could use another injection of science fiction, even if comes from one of the most bloated franchises out there. I guess I'm a sucker for monster fueled carnage in outer space.

- Read the full article on Entertainment Weekly
- Read what Sigourney Weaver has to say about it

RIP Michael Jackson

2009-06-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson
August 29, 1958 - June 25, 2009

Remake Alert! - Poltergeist (2011)

2009-06-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

Reposted from Silver Screen Kid June 2009

No stars attached, no final script, nothing considered remotely solid to report on... but there you have it. You better believe Poltergeist (1982) is getting remade - most likely into a shitty CG cookie cutter of a haunted house movie. The original is one of my all time favs. It's the kind of movie that has horror movie charm oozing out of every orifice. It's a perfect example of the remake epidemic - a classic that will most likely sell well repackaged for the modern market. But at what cost??? Sully the franchises name in hopes of a quick buck? Do your thang Hollywood! Do your thang.

- Check out the script review for an outdated version of the script on Latino Reviews (WTF? why?)

Coming Attractions: Zombieland (2009)

2009-06-24T01:05:00.000-07:00

Rising into theaters October 9, 2009

I'm already painfully late to the party, but I have to join in with the rest of the internet in expressing my awe and excitement at this momentous occasion. It is truly a shocking development, and perhaps one of the most fundamentally life changing events in my adult life: BILL MURRAY WILL PLAY A ZOMBIE in an upcoming film. Screw graduating from college, this is something to write home about. I'm a huge Bill Murray fan - and I kinda like zombies, too. The two together? Well, that's just double delicious.

Mr. Murray might not actually be "playing" a zombie. It's likely that he'll only appear as a brief cameo, but it's still retardedly awesome. This might be weird to say about the guy who starred in Meatballs, but Bill Murray is kinda pretentious (from what I hear). The fact that he's willing to shamble and moan with the rest of the rotters says a lot about the sway zombies have in the industry right now. The brains biz is a buzz. I guess his decision was helped by the fact that Zombieland (the name of the film in question) looks to be one hell of a kick ass zombie ride. I've seen countless movies dealing with widespread zombie outbreak in an urban setting, and countless movies blending comedy and zombies. But somehow the trailer for Zombieland still makes my mouth water and my killing muscles twitch. Woody Harrelson looks like he serves up possibly his greatest role to date as the brash lead zombie slayer. (Yes, this is the movie Woody was shooting when he attacked a papparazzo and claimed he mistook him for a zombie. What a badass excuse!)

This movie has definitely made my short list. Brains will be eaten. Flesh will be rended. And I will be laughing all the way.

- Watch the trailer on DEATHBYVIDEO
- Zombieland on Wikipedia

Zombies Ate My Neighbors (SEGA Genesis 1993) Review

2009-06-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

Reposted from October 2006

I've secretly always hoped that zombies would eat my neighbors so that I could go on an undead slaying rampage. As I sit here with the Silver Screen Kid, consuming 907 grams of irregular candies rejected from the factory and playing Zombies Ate My Neighbors, I'm living out my dreams vicariously through my emulator. The best part was when the hockey masked chainsaw maniac killed the baby. That's hardcore. This game was an extravagant weave of horror genres.

You start out saving your neighbors from zombies, in a wicked simultaneous 2-player mode. It quickly escalates to include ax-wielding midgets, hockey masked chainsaw maniacs, mummies, werewolves, pod-people, and a giant baby. Plus anything else you can think of. The shit has hit the fan and all hell has broken loose and it's beautiful. The Silver Screen Kid and I remapped the controls of the emulator so that we could play 2-player mode with only one keyboard. It worked well enough. 2-player mode is loads better than solo. This game will definitely be included first-thing on the emulator arcade cabinet we're building.

- SEGA Cheats - Zombies Ate My Neighbors (Analog Medium Nov 2005)

SimCity (SNES 1991) Game Genie Codes

2009-06-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

We recently reposted cheats to SimCity for SNES. It got me thinking that there must be some user-discovered or supplemental codes for SimCity SNES that weren't in the original code book. There sure are. I recommend the "Unlimited money" and "Faster time" codes.

DD67-DFAA - Faster time
DE67-DFAA - Slower time
86AB-6D02 + D8AB-6D62 - Start easy game with $3,000
0DA8-6D02 + BAAB-6D62 - Start easy game with $40,000
1DAB-6D02 + 3CAB-6D62 - Start easy game with $60,000
C28A-AD61 - Money usually does not decrease
E28A-AD61 - Unlimited money

Source: GameWinners.com

Death By Link June 2009

2009-06-11T14:06:00.000-07:00

On this edition of Death By Link we bring you a special Tumblr edition. These are some of the blogs I've been checking out on Tumblr lately.

- Scanwiches makes me hungry every time.

- This is why you're fat makes me hungry around 40% of the time. They just got a book deal, so watch out!

- NES things is a kindred spirit and is clearly obsessed with the Nintnendo Entertainment System.

- PICAPIXELS is out of Japan. I don't know where he finds all the pictures he posts, but I'm in like with him.

- fuckyeahstormtroopers is exactly what it sounds like.

Coming Attractions: Purefold

2009-06-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

My brain melted a bit when I first read about Purefold - a new addition to the Blade Runner pantheon. Everyone already knows Blade Runner is the single greatest film to grace the cyberpunk genre. Killer source material, killer setting, killer characters, killer style - and killer replicants. It really can't be beat. Blade Runner: Final Cut is the only thing in recent history that can even be compared to the original. I don't think anyone was expecting BR to get turned into a franchise. Thank God for the internets! I guess franchise is not the most appropriate term for the beast that is Purefold, though. An appropriate term for it doesn't really exist yet. One will have to be invented.

Here's where the brain melting comes in: Purefold will be a series of webisodes set in the Blade Runner universe! Cool, right? Each short will be 5-10 minutes long and directed by the hottest up-and-coming directors out there. Want more? The content of the shorts will be open to influence from fan feedback generated through discussions over at friendfeed. That's been done, right? Here's the whammy: it will all be created under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 liscence! As soon as this sucker hits the web, it will be COMPLETELY FREE AND LEGAL to download it, remix it, and repost it. Fuckin' super rad!

Free access to the finished material isn't just a marketing gimmick, though. Piracy is part of the business model! It's being pushed as a new type of product placement (of sorts). Coke could run in and re-edit the thing so every background actor is sporting a can of Coke Zero. iPod could come in and turn every character into a silhouette cast against an array of fruity colors. Analog Medium could jump in and slap our url on every electronic marquis and hover car bumper. The possibilities are endless. The only requirement is that any product resulting from the original material must also be free to use. The whole mindboggling venture was conceived by Ag8 and is being launched by Free Scott - the joint entertainment venture between Ridley Scott and Tony Scott.

There's one little catch: due to licensing issues with Blade Runner's original source material (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick) - nothing can be pulled directly out of the original film. There won't be any mention of Dekker, Edward James Olmos won't be creeping people out, and I don't think replicants will even make it into the series. Purefold's timeline will run from 2011 to 2019 - the lead up to everything we see in the film. Still, the director of Blade Runner is taking us back to that unforgettable universe 25+ years after it was first translated to the screen, and he's piping it straight into the vast sea of shared information that has, in the meantime, become our lives. How cyberpunk is that?

- Read the press release on Ag8.com
- Help contribute to the shorts by discussing on FriendFeed

UPDATE: tomhimpe said... "Thanks for a great post! Regarding the product placement: we're staying far away from traditional product placement techniques, as it's not a very interesting way for brands to get involved, and it spoils the fun for the audience. Instead, we're looking at featuring prototype future products and services. Purefold is there to uncover what the audience wants from the future, and what brands are up to in the next few years."

Twitpocalypse is Coming

2009-06-09T22:32:00.000-07:00

Submitted by Malfunctioning Eddie

Image by Max Capacity

Twitterers beware! The Twitpocalypse is coming! (What is the proper term for one who twitters? A twit?)

The uber-trendy social networking site has produced an uber-trendy faux apocalypse. According to twitpocalypse.com:

"The Twitpocalypse is similar to the Y2K bug. Very soon the unique identifier associated to each tweet will exceed 2,147,483,647

For some of your favorite third-party Twitter services not designed to handle such a case, the sequence will suddenly turn into negative numbers. At this point, they are very likely to malfunction or crash."

At press time (which is whenever the hell I want it to be) the end-of-all-things-twitter prediction is anticipating zero hour occurring on June 13th at 6:45am. If you're obsessed with all the 3rd party bells and whistles for twitter out there, better get your fix in now while you can! But then again, the more you post the quicker Twitpocalypse will be upon us. Dilemma! To tweet or not to tweet? (What a dumb question)

- Check for an up-to-date prediction on twitpocalypse.com

RIP David Carradine

2009-06-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

David Carradine
(1936 - 2009)

Coming Attractions: [Rec] 2 and To Kako 2: Evil in the Time of Heroes (2009)

2009-06-04T10:31:00.000-07:00

Today I was stumbling around through movie news on ShockTillYouDrop, waiting for a mention of zombies or 3-D to catch my eye, when I noticed a striking correlation between two of the stories. There are two sequels to modern, foreign-made zombie movies coming out this year. Not only that, they're sequels to two modern, foreign-made zombie movies I enjoyed! What are the chances? (I'm all about the classics - foreign zombie movies are fine, as long as they're Italian)

[Rec] 2 (2009) is a follow-up to the frenetic fun ride known as (duh) [Rec] (2007). Remember [Rec]? The Spanish flick with the Blair Witch camera work that didn't suck? The fact that a sequel is dropping is really no surprise. [Rec] is one of the rare zombie flicks from the past 10 years that has enjoyed both successful returns and good reviews from fans. Even the American remake, Quarantine, earned a fair amount of respect from rotter-friendly fan boys (and clocked some major dollars). I enjoyed [Rec] thoroughly myself, although I wasn't going as ape shit over it as some people out there. Hopefully they used their newer bigger budget to fix some of the things I felt were lacking in the first film, like the lack of sustained gore on camera.

I was much more surprised to find out about the sequel to To Kako (Evil) (2005). Everyone remembers To Kako as the first Greek zombie movie... EVER. It brought Greece to the worldwide zombie pantheon in 2005, and admirably so. Now, 4 years later, the zombies have risen to terrorize the Land of Gods once again in To Kako 2: Evil in the Time of Heroes. This time Billy Zane is involved! Wtf? Is he Greek or something? What am I missing there? He was fantastic in Demon Knight, don't get me wrong. It's just extremely random that he's showing up in a long incubated follow up to an obscure low budget zombie flick. It looks like it might be killer, though. Watch the trailer for the surprise meaning behind the title. Fuck it, I'll just tell you. Greek gladiators versus zombies! It's exactly what I expected the first time I heard Greece made a zombie flick. Could be awesome.

- Watch the teaser for [Rec] 2 on DEATH BY VIDEO
- Watch the teaser for To Kako 2: Evil in the Time of Heroes on DEATH BY VIDEO
- shocktillyoudrop.com

SimCity (SNES 1991) Cheats

2009-06-03T20:43:00.000-07:00

Reposted from September 2006

I've been getting busy all over SimCity for Super Nintendo with the help of the cheat code I found. The SimCity Mad Money code, as I like to call it. My city is called Pod Six, after the codename of the new Analog Medium office. It's super cyberpunk. I'm thinking about taking out all the police stations and letting the citizens fend for themselves. Click on the image above to see the big map. While I was researching the game I also found out that there's two unlockable levels in the SNES version of SimCity.

SimCity Mad Money
To max out your money: Turn off auto finances, turn your tax rate and budgets down to 0%. Spend all your money. When the tax screen pops up, hold the L button and reset the budgets to 100% and complete the transaction while still holding the L button. Once you get back to the menu, release the L button and exit the menu. Your cash should be a buck short of a mill.

Unlockable Levels
To unlock the Las Vegas scenario, make a city with at least 100,00 citizens and save it. Beat the six scenarios to unlock Las Vegas. Make sure you have that city saved.
To unlock the Freeland Scenario, just beat the Las Vegas scenario.

Class of 1984 (1982) Review

2009-05-31T17:07:00.000-07:00

"Last year there were 280,000 incidents of violence by students against their teachers and classmates in our high schools. Unfortunately, this film is partially based on true events. Fortunately very few schools are like Lincoln High... yet."

Delicious opening title card, no? That was just the start of the entirely unique viewing experience that is Class of 1984. A cautionary tale about the rising trend of youth violence at American high schools in 1984, it tells the tale of a idealistic teacher from Nebraska who takes a job teaching music at an inner city high school. He quickly finds a nemesis: Stegman, the ringleader of a fascist, racist ring of ultra-punked out drug dealing delinquents. And I mean ultra-punk. They push coke, do heroine, turn out prostitutes, rape, rob, rumble, murder - you name it. There are some killer scenes filmed in an early 80s punk club, too. Alice Cooper even provided the movie's theme song: "I Am The Future."

Class of 1984 is comprised of truly violent exploitation scenes mixed with scenes of earnest drama. The movie as a whole ends up somewhere in between, but definitely leans more toward kick-you-in-the-crotch exploitation. There was an obvious attempt on the part of the filmmakers to create a prophetic vision warning people of the impending explosion of violence and debauchery at American high schools. And I mean obvious. A student experiments with coke and falls to his death from the top of a flagpole wrapped in the American flag, a teacher holds his class hostage with a gun to force his lessons through, etc. (Both classic scenes I might add). To hear director Mark L Lester describe the film, you would think you were watching his purely altruistic contribution to social awareness of youth violence. But remember, this is the same guy who directed Commando - one of the ultimate showcases of senseless action violence from 1985, complete with its own action figures. Still, many of the themes raised by Class of 1984 turned out to be all too commonplace today. The need for metal detectors on campus, youth on teacher violence... the only thing it didn't predict was the modern trend of high school teachers sleeping with their students.

My favorite scenes in Class of 1984 are the ones that really let the violence rip (of course). Essentially the movie goes ape-shit for the last 15 or 20 minutes, which is part of the reason I found it thoroughly enjoyable. I became invested in the characters through the honest intentions of the film making and its charming B-movie qualities, I was entertained by the spatterings of trumped up nihilistic youthful rebellion, but the end really brought it home. I've read on the internets that you can't really enjoy this movie without having a nostalgic connection to it from your youth. I beg to differ. I wasn't born yet when this movie was made, but I was thoroughly entertained by it. Without giving too much away, I'll just say watch for the scene in the woodshop class involving the table saw. Okay, maybe that does give too much away.

- Class of 1984 on Wikipedia
- Watch the trailer on DEATHBYVIDEO

Slanty Skeleton Prototype Photo

2009-05-28T22:29:00.001-07:00

Check out this sweet pic of Max Capacity smoking in one of our new AM Slanty Skeleton shirts. This is the first one we've gotten our hands on, but there's a bunch of other color schemes in the shop we want to check out. And Jaime, your Monkeys Eat People shirt just got here too. So after our next paycheck we'll get that sent out to you for being such a good Droog.

Coming Attractions: Bazooka Joe: The Movie

2009-05-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

A feature length movie based on the Bazooka Joe comic strip... as many on the internet have already put it so succinctly, WTF??? For real? Bazooka Joe, the star of his own 1" x 2" strip, never even had the clout to be included in the comics section of the Sunday paper. He spent his time pushing his self titled brand of shitty bubblegum. Brand awareness is everything, right? I remember that stuff was always rock hard by the time I got around to chomping it. So, let's think about this for a moment: a standard feature film screenplay is 90-120 pages long. Bazooka Joe's old material takes up 2-3 cells, and was shorter on words than your average Garfield strip. I don't envy the writer in charge of that adaptation. I'm taking bets on what the plot of the movie could be. Bazooka Joe and Mort ride motorcycles through South America experiencing the plight of the exploited proletariat? Bazooka Joe impregnates Jane and she decides to keep the baby, despite the willingness of Toughie and Hungry Herman to adopt it as a co-habitating gay couple? Or maybe something with aliens? Let me know if you have any predictions. I predict this movie will die long before it reaches the screen. At least I hope it will, despite the millions of dollars that are bound to get thrown at it. Give me an adaptation of Walking Dead, or DMZ. Not fuckin' Bazooka Joe. Ludicrous.

- Read the announcement on hollywoodreporter.com

DEATH BY VIDEO: May 2009

2009-05-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

- In honor of the the memory of the first movie and the potential for the new Ghostbusters movie, here's the video for the Ghostbusters theme song, complete with random celebrity cameos.

- The trailer for Teenage Exorcist makes it look like a larf.

- Check out Surkin's cool remix of the Bionic Commando theme, complete with original video.

- Maybe one of the best music videos of all time, The Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up should not be viewed around supervisors, girlfriends, or mothers.

- The video for Circles by Qua has puppets in it. That's all you need to know.

- As a bonus, watch Too Short play Dope Fiend Beat live.