movies
The “Back to the Future” trilogy.
“Die Hard” 1 and 2. Not Christmas movies, but good to watch during the holiday season anyway.
“T2: Judgment Day”. I should watch the first movie some day.
The Ray Harryhausen Greek mythology movies: “Jason and the Argonauts” and “Clash of the Titans”.
“Last Action Hero”. A silly and cheesy Schwarzenegger movie.
“The Running Man”.
“Total Recall”.
“Scarface”.
“Escape from New York”.
“RoboCop”. Should I watch the sequels?
“Star Trek” movies, more specifically 2, 3 (a little bit), 4 and 6.
“Speed”.
“Minority Report”.
“Taxi” 1–4 (the French series written by Luc Besson).
“Galaxy Quest”.
“Van Helsing” (2004). With its mish-mash of different classical horror monsters and a plot centered around a vampire killer out to end Dracula, it’s basically the movie version of the old Castlevania games.
“Street Fighter”. An absolutely cheesy movie with an amazing performance by Raúl Juliá.
“Tropic Thunder”. Not a fan of the “full r-word” scene, though.
tv shows
“Star Trek”. The original series is cheesy and IMO doesn’t hold up as well, but it’s okay. TNG is awesome, and right now I’m in progress of watching DS9, which so far also seems cool.
“The Office”. I can see why this show spawned so many internet memes and became so famous. Tried watching “Parks and Rec”, but I didn’t like its tone as much.
“Cobra Kai”. Apart from a few jokes at the expense of “political correctness” (which are probably justifiable given the series' plot), this is an excellent series that actually makes me want to watch the “Karate Kid” movies as well.
“Norsemen”. A Norwegian comedy series about vikings which juxtaposes the brutal life and activity of Viking Age society with the more relaxed attitudes of modern-day Scandinavians.
“Game Center CX”. A Japanese series in which middle-aged comedian ARINO Shinya plays through old video games. SA-GCCX and GooseCanyon do good subtitled translations of the show’s episodes, and some have also been officially translated and released in English under the title “Retro Game Master”.
“Dirty Pair”. A silly anime from 1985 about two mercenary girls who go after dangerous people and cause lots of collateral damage. Very enjoyable.
“Red Photon Zillion”. A story about humans fighting off a genocidal alien force using special guns. Ends with an interesting twist. Was made in collaboration with Sega, and it shows: Opa-Opa from Fantasy Zone is the comic relief character, and at one point the main character is actually playing a Sega Master System. I watched through it all and I kinda liked it.
“Initial D”. A racing series famous for making eurobeat music and the Toyota AE86 a legendary vehicle not just in Japan, but across the world. I watched some of its First Stage, but lost track.
“Lucky Star”. Seems like it was made for people way geekier than me. I only understood a handful of references.
“Death Note”. Over here, it used to be considered really edgy back when it was made? Like, apparently parents groups got really mad, and even in 2021, a Russian court banned a couple of pages about it.
“Area 88”. A manga about an airline pilot forced into fighting a civil war in the Middle East as a mercenary. I watched the OVA, and it seemed pretty cool. There’s also a video game adaptation, known in the West as “UN Squadron”.
“Akagi”. A manga and anime series about a mahjong player who loves nothing more than a good gamble, and uses his skills, luck and an occasional trick to defeat a heartless millionaire. I watched the anime, and I kinda wanna read the manga, but I read that it’s really long and slow.
music
At home, my family really loves listening to a 70s/80s/90s oldies radio station (but one that recently seems to have specifically started playing songs used in memes, like “Africa” by Toto and “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley). I like some of the songs, but barely tolerate others.
Here are some I actually enjoy listening to:
A Flock of Seagulls - I Ran
Bill Conti - Gonna Fly Now (aka “the Rocky theme”)
Cheap Trick - Mighty Wings (aka “that song Yoko Shimomura ripped off to make Ken’s Theme from Street Fighter II”)
Danzig - Mother
Dschinghis Khan - Moskau
Dead or Alive - You Spin Me Around (I actually found out about this song from a YouTube channel that played MSX Metal Gear games).
Europe - Final Countdown
Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Two Tribes (think I learned about it from Vice City)
Gary Numan - Cars
Guns ‘N Roses - Sweet Child o’ Mine, Welcome to the Jungle, Paradise City
Haddaway - What is Love
Huey Lewis & the News - Power of Love
Iron Maiden - 2 Minutes to Midnight
Kenny Loggins - Danger Zone
Laura Branigan - Self Control
Dick Dale and His Del-Tones - Misirlou
Nena - 99 Luftballoons
Paul Engemann - Push It to the Limit
Scorpions - Wind of Change
The Eagles - Hotel California
I have a large collection of music taken from video games, especially NES, Genesis/Mega Drive and Super NES games in their respective .nsf, .vgm and .spc formats.
games (non-video)
riichi mahjong.
I have some appreciation for chess and shogi, but I don’t have the tactical mind to actually play them.
“Secret Hitler”: a hidden-role game where liberals are tasked with stopping the rise of fascism in 1930s Germany.
“Codenames”: a word game where two teams have to guess their words based on vague one-word clues while avoiding the other team’s words or black “assassin” words.
games (video)
Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, 3, World and Odyssey.
Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, 3&K, sometimes CD and 3D Blast, Adventure 1 and 2, most of Generations and Mania.
Final Fight (arcade) and Streets of Rage 1, 2 and 4.
Street Fighter II in all of its variations (tho I’m not a competitive player).
Neo Turf Masters.
Tetris (in both old and modern interpretations, though things like T-Spins are still hard for me).
Puyo Puyo, though I’m even worse at it than at Tetris.
Castlevania 1, 3 and Bloodlines.
Contra and Super C.
Chrono Trigger.
Terranigma.
Sim City 1 (including the SNES port), 2000, 3000 and a bit of 4.
Cities:Skylines is good, but I play it rarely.
The Punch-Out!! games on the NES and SNES (I sometimes want to get a Wii just to try out the Wii game).
Most of the classic SEGA acade games (and their ports) of the 1980s (Outrun, Hang On, Fantasy Zone, Golden Axe, Space Harrier, After Burner…)
Yakuza 0, Kiwami 1 and 2, and “Like a Dragon”.
Metal Gear Solid 1.
Phantasy Star Online is cool, but I often forget about it.
The Road Rash series.
Jet Set Radio. I should play Future someday.
3D era Grand Theft Auto games (3, Vice City, San Andreas, LCS, VCS): the HD ones (IV, V) are also good, but I play them more rarely.
All of the Zachtronics coding games (TIS-100, Shenzhen I/O, Exapunks), until I get stuck on something.
