My Favorites – Xaviar X. Xerexes

My Favorite: Videogames: FPS + RPG

by Xaviar XerexesMarch 31, 2013

There are only a handful of videogames that I have really and truly loved like a book, comic, movie or song. The ones that readily come to mind are all post-school for me when computer technology finally got to the point where graphics and gameplay enabled the kind of world building and immersive story-telling that was a generation beyond the Atari 2600 games of my childhood. It’s also when I finally had enough money to afford a decent PC and the games themselves. I like the challenge of games but I don’t love it; no more than I love the …

My Favorite: Movies: 1989

by Xaviar XerexesFebruary 25, 2013

I’ve been too busy to focus on this “favorites” exercise for awhile but I’m so close to finishing the Eighties and tackling another decade long list that I just have to dig in and give it another 100%. As always, first a list of movies I’ve seen and those I probably should still get around to seeing. HAVE SEEN: Christmas Vacation, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Batman, Dead Poets Society, Back to the Future II, Say Anything, When Harry Met Sally, Glory, Field of Dreams, The Abyss, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Do the Right Thing, Ghostbusters II, Driving Miss Daisy, Tango & …

My Favorite: Movies: 1988

by Xaviar XerexesJanuary 31, 2013

1988 in retrospect doesn’t seem to shape up as a great year for great films, but oh boy am I missing seeing some very highly rated movies. Still a lot of the comedies from that year are ones I think back about and still find very funny. I need to rewatch a bunch of them. HAVE SEEN: Die Hard, Scrooged, Beetlejuice, Rain Man, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Coming to America, Big, Cinema Paradiso, Heathers, Cocktail, They Live, Young Guns, A Fish Called Wanda, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, Midnight Run, Twins, Stand and Deliver, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Adventures of Baron …

My Favorite: Movies: 1987

by Xaviar XerexesJanuary 28, 2013

1987 wasn’t a bad year. I graduated from high school and some pretty memorable movies came out. The Untouchables is easily my favorite movie from that year – a stylish dynamic crime thriller with brilliant performances from Robert DeNiro, Sean Connery and yes, Kevin Costner. This had to have been one of Andy Garcia’s first roles, right? Everybody in the movie is quite good. The staircase scene is classic — I now it’s a huge lift from the 1925 Russian film, Battleship Potemkin, but that doesn’t take anything away from the tension inspired by director Bryan DePalma’s take on it. [youtube …

My Favorite: Movies: 1986

by Xaviar XerexesJanuary 25, 2013

1986 had a lot of movies in the middle. It also had one heck of a bad movie I paid good money to see. I wasn’t a Howard the Duck comic book fan but I definitely got caught up in the hype. That was a pretty awful movie. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgd46QiHz4I?rel=0] I was a big fan of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It was the capstone of the first phase of John Hughes’ career – which makes sense as it’s about leaving highschool behind (and of course, goofing off) where all of his previous movies had taken place. But I will give …

My Favorite: Movies: 1985

by Xaviar XerexesJanuary 23, 2013

Another year full of movies I remember pretty fondly. There were a number of movies I actually liked quite a bit while watching them but just can’t list as among my top ten favorites from the perspective of 2013. Young Sherlock Holmes is a fun and fairly well done movie adaptation of the iconic character with some decent special effects for 1985. Heaven Help Us is about a band of boys at a catholic high school — I went to a catholic high school. Finally, Explorers was a fun adventure movie for kids — I distinctly remember choosing it over …

My Favorite: Movies: 1984

by Xaviar XerexesJanuary 21, 2013

1984 has special connotations due to the George Orwell novel. It was the year Ronald Reagan won his “Morning in America” reelection to the United States Presidency. I bet there were some editorial cartoons that year linking the two. It was also the year the Oakland Los Angeles Raiders beat the Washington Redskins (I live in the DC general area now; I still wish the football team would change its name) – a game that sealed my fandom of the Raiders and doomed me to many recent years of misery as they’ve fallen into deep ineptitude. But that game was …

My Favorite: Movies: 1983

by Xaviar XerexesJanuary 18, 2013

1983 was during my high school years. I had forgotten this but just as 1980 delivered a Star Wars and a Superman sequel; 1983 delivered a Star Wars and a Superman sequel. HAVE SEEN: A Christmas Story, Vacation, The Outsiders, Return of the Jedi, War Games, Superman III, Trading Places, Octopussy, Never Say Never Again, Risky Business, The Right Stuff, The Meaning of Life, Krull, Twilight Zone, Mr. Mom, The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew, The Man with Two Brains, Educating Rita, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Zelig. HAVE NOT: Scarface, Flashdance, Videodrome, Local Hero, Terms of Endearment, Christine, The Dead Zone, Rumblefish, Cujo, The King …