Infinite Lives

It’s just kind of a Philadelphia day.

Tri City, by Autumn Society member M.A. Mansur.

The Autumn Society blog currently has a bunch of sneak peeks at next month’s 3G Show, too.

• The Autumn Society – Tri City

Editor’s note: Here, friends, comes a maybe-NSFW review of Dungeonmaster, the 1985 sci-fi/horror flick based loosely on computer game geekery turning dungeon-y (mentioned, however briefly by me, here, in a feature about movies about video games that turn deadly). You see, during a recent conversation, I learned that my boyfriend Derek reviewed Dungeonmaster for a website ten years ago (I’ve only just seen it!). Maybe the movie ultimately has little to do with video games, but now having read Derek’s column, I certainly feel culturally literate. I tried to clean up Derek’s language a little, also, but that was a losing battle. His review, updated for our modern times, below:

The Dungeonmaster

3-Second Synopsis: Paul fights Bull from TV’s “Night Court” in a winner-takes-all fight-to-the-death in various locations around the world, in the underworld, and in a few alternate dimensions.

General Info: Rated PG for being the worst/greatest film of all time.

* Written and Directed by Dave Allen, Charles Band, John Carl Buechler, Steven Ford, Peter Manaoogian, Ted Nicolaou (Satan), and Rosemarie Turko. And also, Satan.

• Starring Richard Moll (AKA Bull from “Night Court”)
• Run Time: 73 minutes
• 1985.

The Treachery: Do I need to preface all this by telling you I haven’t done one of these in awhile? I mean, it’s been almost ten years since I wrote a review for the foul.com website—which, by the way, doesn’t exist anymore, but that’s all right, now that they are You Me Them Everybody—and anyway, I plan to make up for lost time. Starting now!

Basically, the plot of Dungeonmaster is straightforward: a computer geek named Paul, with a superior, AI “wristband” that can control any electronic device, and also apparently the space-time continuum, has this girlfriend named Gwen. She is kidnapped by the evil wizard/Satan character, Mestema, played by Richard Moll, who is none other than Bull from “Night Court.” Since I’m not too familiar with Bull’s career post-1985, I’ll just assume he was in this shitfest of a movie for coke and whore money. If you haven’t clicked “back” in your web browser already, man, you’re in for the ride of your life.

Geekadelpha’s Dan Tabor attended the Otakon anime convention in Baltimore a couple weeks ago, and today he uploaded his photographs to Flickr! And while I am ordinarily unmoved by cosplay, for some reason, all of these earnest, grinning kids really sell it for me (especially cleanly-shaven, babyfaced Gordon Freeman).

Check out Dan’s set! You’re sure to fall in love all over again with Samus Aran, Mega Man, Magnet Man, Astro Boy, the Companion Cube, Silent Hill nurses, Oregon Trail, Waldo, Zombie Waldo, obligatory Leeloo, Ryu, Ken, and Akuma, adorably unthreatening Zangief, Okami’s Amaterasu (?!), OK, then we’ll both be Scorpion, Pedobear, “Paper” Shredder, Big Trouble in Little China, Inspector Gadget, Lady Gaga, Flo, the Progressive car insurance employee, a lawn gnome, and many, many more.

• Otakon 2010 Flickrset via Geekadelphia

Everything Jude Buffum does and makes is inspired, but these 3 pieces for the upcoming 3G Show (Gremlins, Goonies, Ghostbusters) at LA’s Gallery 1988 absolutely take the, uh, the Zuul.

Each of Buffum’s movies-as-8-bit-video-game has already been making the rounds on Tumblr and Reddit today—although, to be fair, I first saw these at .tiff—but they are well worth reposting. So here they are again!

“I wanted to pick a pivotal moment in each film,” Buffum writes, “a scene where one of the characters makes a crucial discovery (or error).”

I especially like the direction Buffum took in his rendering of Gremlins as a 2D platformer: as in the movie, Kate is holding the gremlin threat at bay with flash photography. It’s very Fatal Frame, isn’t it? I would totally play that 8-bit game!

If you happen to be in Los Angeles this fall, I definitely recommend that you pick up some of Buffum’s limited-edition prints and, you know, mail them to me. The exhibit opens September 3rd and runs through the 22nd.

Also, if you happen to be in San Francisco right now, I definitely recommend the current solo show at Gallery 1988 SF, as it is all collage work by the Chicago artist who moonlights as Rotofugi Gallery’s curator. I think I’m obligated by law to mention that.

The 3G Show
Friday, September 3, 7-10pm
Gallery 1988
7020 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles

• Jude Buffum – The 3G Show

Get Lamp is a documentary about text adventure games. It has been in the works for a long time. You can order it on DVD. It comes with a coin. Filmmaker Jason Scott promises that the documentary is “spoiler-free.” The region-free, two-disc set includes featurettes on other subjects, too, including a history of Infocom. It is very dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

• Laughing Squid Links – Get Lamp (by Scott Beale)

Most shirt designs that appear on the Threadless voting block do not thrill me—do people not understand the concept of color palette limitations?—but I would wear this stylized Tanooki across my heart, absolutely. (Except for, where are his testicles, but on the other hand, I probably would not want to explain my t-shirt’s ponderous ballsack all day long, so never mind.)

• Super Punch – Earning some coins

Sweden-based illustrator Mattias Adolfsson depicts an easier, domestic sort of horror in this drawing in his Moleskine, “First person shooter.”

“The weapon to the right is a Norwegian cheese slicer,” Mattias explains, “Norway’s contribution to world civilization.”

• Mattias Inks: First-person shooter via giantmecha

• Pin-up Peach via the Superlevel tumblog

Games can be a kind of philosophy, a kind of homebrew neuroscience, a martial art in which you get to eat pretzels and drink beer, a spiritual discipline made out of math, a way of thinking about thinking, a way of becoming more consciously aware of our thoughts and beliefs and decisions and learning about complex and counterintuitive truths about ourselves and the universe. So as we reinvent gaming as the dominant art form of the 21st century, I just want to remember that games can do that.