Special When Lit: A Pinball Documentary

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Special When Lit: A Pinball Documentary (2009)

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Special When Lit rediscovers the lure of a lost pop icon - pinball. This award winning documentary joins the fans, collectors, designers and champion players from across the globe who share the story of a phenomenon that once swept the world.

Movie|Not Rated|1 hr. 29 min.|

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Title	Special When Lit: A Pinball Documentary (2009)
Runtime	1 hr. 29 min.
Studio	The Orchard
Genres	News and Information
Description	Special When Lit rediscovers the lure of a lost pop icon - pinball. The American invention made more money than Hollywood through the 50's and 60's. Its success swept the world making it the epitome of ‘cool’. But now pinball is all but forgotten. This is the definitive story of the rise and fall of pinball as told by the fans, collectors, designers and champion players from across the globe. Its history is charted with a series of uniquely stark and entertaining interviews with some of pinball’s greatest names. A game, a sport, a lifestyle – pinball takes this eclectic bunch back to their youth. It seems at times like an emotional and sensitive area, with the fans describing the game like a relationship, their faces lighting up as if they were recounting their first kiss. Pinball was everywhere. But now pinball is virtually nowhere. Kids don’t even know what a pinball machine is. Their world is online, not at the arcade or corner store. The fate of pinball seems decided yet there exists a passionate sub culture keeping the dream alive. But pinball is a game with a score. And where there are scores there are competitions. ‘The Storm’, a stockbroker from New York City, confesses that you have to ‘build up your pinball muscles’ in order to compete at the highest level. From the European championships in Amsterdam and Sweden, to the World Pinball Championships in Pittsburgh, and a smattering of amateur backyard tournaments in between, Special When Lit shares the tension, dreams and disappointments of pinball’s tournament players. It will leave you searching for an arcade to line up your coins and master the silver ball.

7 months ago

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Men are genetically wired for the hunt. Watching an object move in seemingly random ways and impacting that movement through coordinated motions is what men (talking about the most basic pre-modern instinctual level) spent thousands upon thousands of years doing and their survival depended on this. For women, the traits that have been selected for deal more with the protection and care of their children and exhibiting strength in the control of their more immediate environment. Think of it like this, a man can impregnate 10 women in a day (what does it matter if he cares for any of the offspring)
A woman can only
be impregnated once every 9 / 10 months. She has much more invested in a child from the start. Her focus isn't on chasing just any prey (more on selecting men who are good at chasing down prey). See 1 other reply

9 months ago

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Early in the film, the guy at the Pinball Hall of Fame says that you can't relive pinball tables from your youth. He's comparing it to having a nostalgic song on your iPod or owning a DVD of a a movie that you loved years ago. Not true.

I can play almost any pinball ever made (and many original tables) on Visual Pinball. Just Google it. It's not quite the same as a real machine, but the simulation is amazing.

9 months ago

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That's the exact quote that I thought of when I saw your subject. EBD was a seminal machine. The tilt saying is not bad either: "Whoops! Too much English." See 1 other reply

11 months ago

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I've always been curious as to why certain things (like pinball) are seemingly genetically attractive to the male of our species. You won't find any pinball machines with flowers, butterflies and cute kitties; not because of bias or "rejudice, but because it would surely fail to attract players.

It's not about physical ability; there are females (I assume) that are into pinball and are quite good. It is not a "social conditioning" sort of thing, but I'll bet many females reading this will argue this point, or that it is a "male domination and control" thing; you know: "a pinball machine is a metaphor of a female that you can manipulate ... yadda, yadda, yadda... (Believe it or not, there is no Male Grand Conspiracy to dominate the female population, etc.).

Any ideas?

11 months ago

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Everything a good documentary should be: comprehensive and concise, informative and entertaining. For old-timers (like me) it's quite a trip back to our misspent youth; and for the younger folks it's a trip into a world that they probably didn't know existed. Yet another example of the amazing world created by "baby-boomers" that will be relegated to the history books. [Book: bound hard-copy media device for display of analog text and/or images].

11 months ago

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I had a DR. DUDE game in my sports card store and when the store was empty I spent all my time at that machine. I just remember it being alot of fun. an electronic score board, tunrn table, all the bells and whistles but it was before there was an electronic screen that diverted your attention away from the table too much.I wish i could play a few rounds of that again! See 6 other replies

12 months ago

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This was an exceptional documentary that had beautiful cinematography as well as great interaction with the subjects. It was very entertaining and the characters were very memorable. It shows a side of human nature, and these people just love pinball, it was very special.

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