Mystery Science Theater 3000 was one of those shows that I grew up on, even though it had a somewhat loose schedule on the Sci-Fi channel, or is it SyFy now? Anyway, after MST3K ended, the minds and voices behind everyone’s favorite hecklers moved on to RiffTrax. Where MST3K commented on some of the worst movies ever with personal favorites including The Final Scarifice,  Space Mutiny, and Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders, RiffTrax isn’t confined to just bad movies. There is commentary on all types of films from The Bourne Series, Lord of The Rings, and even Twilight. Okay, it’s true that I only mentioned Twilight to link to that hilarious image.

On August 20th, RiffTrax will do a live simulcast in theaters all around the country. One of those theaters happens to be the Riverview Theater hear in Philly! The film to be graced with the commentary of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett will be Ed Wood‘s Plan 9 From Outer Space in color.  Tickets can be purchased here.

I will definitely be there and I hope to see a few of our readers there too. Maybe we could even have a group meetup if enough people are interested.  I can’t wait.

Image and Information via rifftrax.com

Rock Band developer Harmonix recently announced its Rock Band Network feature for the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band 2. This nifty new feature will allow players to upload their own originally recorded music and apply the  gameplay mechanics (meaning the matching button combinations) to them. Even better, any tracks that fulfill Harmonix’s technical specifications while receiving enough positive peer reviews will be put up for sale on the Rock Band Network Store.

The system is similar to the feature found in Activision and Neversoft’s Guitar Hero: World Tour, which allows players to create music within the game and upload it to the online store, but MTV and Harmonix have obviously taken it one step further. Personally, I find this idea extremely exciting. The more ways there are for unsigned/indie label bands to be heard the better. Some people (i.e. me) love to be the one who listened to the band before they were cool, but imagine mastering the band’s song on expert before they were cool.

This leads us to the obvious question: will bands bite? In other words, will unsigned bands, or even bands attached to a label, leave the safe haven of Myspace behind and allow potential fans to play their music? More importantly, would you use the Rock Band Network as a tool to discover new music? Your chance to be heard, loyal readers, is in that tiny link above that image!

(Image Via Playstation UK)

Those regular readers of Geekadelphia will know I am a huge fan of  horror and monster movies.  So when I saw this shirt by Sean Mort I squee’d like a little school girl. Sean has managed to get some of my all time favorite monsters onto one shirt. From the Rancor from Star Wars to the Cloverfield monster you get a comparison chart of sizes of the different monsters in question and how they stack up against one another. While some have disputed Megatron’s size on the shirt, I still think this is a brilliant idea pick up yours here.

via i09

Oh sweet Lord. The Franklin Institute is giving away a telescope signed by Spock. Friggin’ Spock! Say it with me now. Ready?

WANT.

The good folks at the museum will be dishing out a vintage Celestron C-11 telescope, signed by no other than Leonard Nimoy. The telescope debuted in the institute last week on July 9th, during the Franklin’s monthly night skies program. The winner will also receive a framed photo of Nimoy signing the telescope. Nice!

How can you win this sweet piece of telescope? Visit the Franklin’s page for the Star Trek exhibit, and answer some Star Trek trivia questions. You can earn bonus entries by uploading a special photo or video. The contest runs through September 30th.

Good luck, me and the Geekadelphia gang will be entering like CRAZY starting… now.

Update: The Franklin Institutes’s contest page crashed after the Geekadelphia crew entered a record breaking three thousand and sixteen times, completely disregarding the one entry per person rule. The Franklin promised us a prize for this.

Update #2: They gave us a Tribble.

Exhumed Films a local horror film society I wrote about previously will being showing a double bill of two movies by Jeff Lieberman at the International House, Saturday August 22 at 8pm. They will be showing two of his films Blue Sunshine and Just Before Dawn back to back on glorious 16mm for the mere price of $10, what a bargain. The director Jeff Lieberman will also be hosting the event, doing a Q&A and signing autographs while there.  The print of Just Before Dawn that will be shown that night is a very rare longer print of the film with more footage than any video release known. So if you enjoy old horror movies like I do I highly suggest you check this event out. See ya there!

Check after the jump for detailed descriptions of the films and trailers.

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Image via So Good Blog

We’re fortunate here in Philadelphia to have a ton of great pizza places. Dock St in West Philly, Couch Tomato in Manayunk, Little Italy Pizza down in Washington Square, Tacconellis in Kensington… hm? What? Don’t look so surprised. Of course I know where the best pizza spots are. I’m a geek, and pizza is my fuel while getting my game on.

And of course, there are the chains floating around, one of whom, Domino’s, has a pretty neat marketing campaign going down in our fine city. I don’t know about the rest of you Philly folks, but I just found out about this, and haven’t seen it on any other Philly blogs.

Domino’s Pizza launched an environmentally-friendly marketing campaign around three major cities. Los Angeles, New York, and… yeah, you guessed it. Philadelphia. What are they doing? They’re using Green Graffiti, a program that cleans part of a sidewalk and leaves ads behind using a high-pressure water sprayer. It’s a really interesting green-esque initiative, that teams up with advertising companies to find green methods of promoting their wares, all while cleaning sidewalks and recycling water. You can learn about them here.

Starting last week, folks could take a photo of themselves with a Green Graffiti sidewalk that sports the Domino’s logo in order to win a $15 gift card to the pizza joint. Personally, I haven’t seen any of the Domino’s logos around the city, but I know a handful of people who have. Now we know these ads are for, and I gotta say, this is a little better than getting my mailbox crammed full of coupons and ads from the Domino’s on South Street.

So if you see one of those ads, take a picture with it, and email pr@dominos.com. You’ll score a $15 gift card. Hey, free food is free food. But hurry up, the contest ends this Friday at midnight… or when 250 people send in pictures. I have a feeling once people know what the ads are for, the cards are going to get scooped up fast.

Oh, and follow us on Twitter. We’ll be giving away two $15 gift cards on there today.

Domino’s Pizza Contest
www.dominosbiz.com/Biz-Public-EN/Extras/

As the San Diego Comic Con gets closer, you’ll discover two things. One, that I will become more and more depressed as the days go by, knowing I cannot attend. And two, that my disposition will radically change each time I log onto the net to see what sort of ridiculous trouble Tony Trov and Johnny Zito are getting into, as they video blog their way across America.

On July 18th, these Philadelphia based comic artists will make their way across the country to San Diego, video blogging the whole trip on the Black Cherry Bombshells’ blogspot. What sort of shenanigans can we expect? A lot of them.

According to the blog, the video segments will “feature giant balls of yarn, engine grilled hot dogs and NSFW truck stop shenanigans.” They’ve got planned stops in Vegas, LA, and Graceland. “This is Manifest Destiny meets Fear and Loathing,” say the duo.

Updates start on Saturday, and continue through the Comic Con. Have fun guys!

I know! You’re thinking, didn’t Eric just post about the 8-Static event yesterday, claiming that he plans to go? How can Geekadelphia be in two places at once? Here’s the answer… wait for it… time travel.

Actually, the Philly Geek Party, which kicks off this Saturday, begins at 9PM and runs til the wee hours of the morning, wayyyy past Bianca’s bedtime, til 2AM. This gives you plenty of time to check out 8-Static for a while before heading to Tir Ni Nog in Center City. Or vice versa.

So what is Philly Geek Party? Well, the purpose of this party is to simply socialize and network with fellow geeks in a laid-back bar atmosphere. And to help in getting ya’ll relaxed, if you RSVP to the party on the Facebook page, you’ll get your first drink at the bar FREE. So hit that up, and RSVP. Attendees will also be entered in a raffle to win a plethora of prizes, like action figures, pocket protectors, and other horribly stereotypical geek gear.

So come on out. It’ll be fun. And check out Philly Geek Party’s official blog and Twitter account for more updates.

Philly Geek Party @ Tir Na Nog
1600 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
9PM – 2AM

Animal Style live at the BLIP Festival, Photo by Ziggy Fresh

Oh hell yeah! I love me some Chiptune.

This weekend, if you hop on over to Studio 34, you can catch Philadelphia’s own Animal Style performing live at 8static. Other groups joining this local favorite include Starpause and ARY, with visuals by CHiKA. This is Starpause’s first show in Philadelphia, ever, and you can listen to some of his tracks for free here.

There’s even going to be a free workshop on the Little GP Tracker, an awesome open source gaming platform, by Starpause and Peter Swimm at 7PM.

See ya’ll there!

Get more info, directions, etc at www.8static.com!

With Watchmen’s impending release I have been reading some stuff that has upset me about the release of this film. You know I consider myself a movie buff and as such I used to buy quite a lot of DVDs.Trust me a lot is putting it lightly. The key word here is “used”. See somewhere along the line we forgot why the DVD was invented in the first place. DVD was originally the replacement for the Laserdisc(showing my age here quite a bit) and Laserdiscs were once the only place to not only find a widescreen version of the film, but also commentaries and deleted scenes as well. Because they were once actually a FEATURE not a requirement. Commentaries were not something every director had to do before they wrapped production, they were usually enlightening and thought provoking. Where now they are standard on all releases and about entertaining as paint drying on a wall, well most are. Once the directors had to lobby for a Laserdisc release and the budget to put together a commentary track. They also had to track down the footage from deleted scenes and alternate endings for the release. Now this is all standard and all this content is produced in conjunction with the film.

Now DVDs like Laserdiscs were meant to be the DEFINITIVE  version of your film. The one with everything on it that pertained to your film, a COMPLETE version mind you to sit on your shelf for years to come. Somewhere, someone figured out, probably at Lucasfilm “if we release one version of the film with no extras and release another version about a year later with maybe one or two new features people will still buy it again” and “double dipping” was invented, thanks George.  This practice that once was reserved for big titles has like everything else trickled down. Now even sub-par, better left forgotten, action movies like Daredevil are victims of this practice and people still surprisingly buy them. Much like the constant stream of remakes and re-imagines people are still putting down their hard earned money for product they already own, so they can hear about the director’s struggle to get the lead actress to do a nude scene to better show the vulnerability of her character.

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The folks over on Philly.com posted up a great video detailing the epic cardboard tube battle this past weekend. Have a look, and pay close attention to the fight between the Comcast Center and a certain cardboard clad vixen… also known as our own Bianca Cevoli. She fought bravely.

Cardboard Tube Fight Video
www.philly.com/dailynews/multimedia/BC29322457001.html

PEW PEW PEW!

I love Ikaruga. Seriously, I love this game. I scoured the used bins of Gamestop and the trenches of eBay to find a used copy for my Gamecube about a year ago. It is easily one of the most unforgiving arcade shooters ever, and now, instead of spending $50+ on eBay like some idiots (read: me), you can score it on XBox Live for a mere 400 Microsoft points ($5).

I’ll be purchasing it so I can rock this game in all it’s hi-def glory. Plus, scoring achievements ain’t so bad either. Now I wait, wait patiently, for Radiant Silvergun to come to XBLA.

Ikaruga for $5 via Joystiq