Blatant Geekery

Last Friday night while scanning Netflix for a throwback from my list to rewatch, I found a great 80s classic with Matthew Broderick.  BEFORE his memorable role as Ferris Bueller, he starred as a computer genius named David in War Games. War Games takes place in the 80s during the Cold War. After a failed launch exercise (featuring Mr. Blonde, Michael Madsen ) the US government is convinced that they should give control of the nuclear program to a computer. That is, until it's hacked by a high school kid. When David (Broderick) successfully accesses this super-computer, he's trying to get into the computer of a software company to play their latest game before it's released. He unknowingly begins a showdown between the US and Russia that could lead to World War III if he doesn't help stop it.  I am not going to go into what happens....just in case you haven't seen it or it's been a while for you. (I'd like to know what you guys think....in the futu...

This week I'm super excited about the Fangirl Favorite. As you can tell from the Wizard of Oz Throwback post I did recently, I have a slight obsession with most things Oz related.   I say most because I’m a bit of a traditionalist.   I have an exceedingly difficult time adjusting to many of the more modern takes on the story.   I know that even the classic movie swayed from the original L. Frank Baum books in several ways.   Obviously one of the biggest changes was that of the now famous ruby slippers, which were originally silver.   For some reason, changes like these didn’t bother me.   Maybe it's because I grew up on both the books and the film. I’m not a huge fan of The Wiz and I couldn’t stand watching Oz The Great and Powerful.   Yuck.   So, I admit that even after spending a good deal of time talking with Tom Hutchison, writer of Legends of Oz: The Wild West, there was still a part of me that was reluctant to read the books. ...

I’ve been feeling kind of crappy lately and I thought to myself, “There’s only one movie that can pick me up right now.”   Though I didn’t have a grandfather to take care of me and read me stories when I was sick, there’s still something about watching The Princess Bride when you’re not feeling up to par.   That combined with the fact that the interwebs are buzzing about The Princess Bride heading to Broadway made this a perfect Throwback for this week. I remember when I was in the fifth grade we would, on occasion, have a “movie day” on Friday.   I convinced everyone that there was this great movie we NEEDED to watch.   I knew it line for line.   (Sadly, I forgot about the “I want my father back you SOB” line until it was right upon us and had to jump up to fast-forward it…oops.)   I don’t know if any of my friends remember watching it then.   It seems like it has a much bigger following these days, but that could just b...