It's Just Movies

— by CAM SMITH —

I consider myself to be a fairly enthusiastic supporter of Bill Paxton and his quirky cinematic oeuvre. He’s insanely fun in pop-corn classics such as “Weird Science,” “True Lies” and “Near Dark,” and genuinely compelling and powerful in more serious fare like “A Simple Plan,” “Frailty” and “Apollo 13.” And I don’t think my friends and I have made it through a single one of our annual camping trips without repeatedly uttering his undying “Aliens” catch-phrase “Game over, man!” ad nauseum.

However, it would appear that my own respectable level of fandom is nearly inconsequential next to that of Benjamin J. Heckendorn, who has committed his most dutiful film-geek efforts (not to mention hard-earned income) to immortalizing the man in the most fitting form possible — pinball!

That’s right. Mr. Heckendorn’s wondrous creation, dubbed “Bill Paxton Pinball,” is a fully-customized, totally-playable arcade godsend boasting beautiful Paxtonian art and a plethora of choice soundbytes.

On top of the sheer majesty of the machine’s appearance on the website, the creator also has provided a glimpse behind the magical curtain, with a fairly-extensive four-part making of feature, coupled with a downloadable video documenting the lengthy process, and plenty of photos. There are also an exhaustive number of demo clips illustrating every possible feature the machine possesses.

I recommend you all take a gander at the dude’s site. It’s always plenty entertaining to mine the depths of others’ obsessive artistic ventures and, who knows, you just might learn a few tricks and tips on how to construct your very own personal pinball shrine for the idiosyncratic star of your own choosing. Steve Buscemi, perhaps? How ‘bout Greg Kinnear? Or maybe Michael Madsen?

As a delicious teaser for the big pinball tamale, I’ve attached a demo video of the machine in action. Enjoy.

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Follow Cam Smith on Twitter at http://twitter.com/camspcepisodes.