UPDATE! Answers to the following quiz have been posted at this link.

Since I started this blog, I've dropped a lot of pop-culture references as they relate to politics, but pretty much I've avoided really getting into pop culture at all. I'm a pop culture freak -- well, at least I'm a freak for bad male-oriented 80's-90's pop culture -- but I figured a blog needed a focus, and this blog's focus was pretty much politics.

But every time I post something having to do with pop culture, I get busloads of comments. I had no idea so many readers were starving to discuss Eddie and the Cruisers, Streets of Fire (greatest. film. ever.) or the career of William Peterson.

When I was posting at Slate's Fray, and then The Perfect World, I wrote a lot about movies. People who generally despised me for my gonzo Republicanism actually seemed to kind of liked what I had to say about, say, the Ace of Spades Superfluous Handsome Man Postulate (which says, basically, that a movie needs only one handsome young man; if it has two, then the second handsome man is superfluous and is either 1) the friend who's going to be killed partway through Act II as in Speed or 2) the villain, as in SnakeEyes).

So, I don't know. I don't want to alienate my readers who have an entirely political interest, but it does seem that I sort of have the green-light to discuss something that I'm probably even more interested in than politics. Well, I'd rather discuss politics when my side is winning, but when my side is losing ground, sometimes I'd rather talk about the homoerotic imagery in The Lost Boys.

No, this doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing politics. Don't be silly. It took me ten months of blogging to get up to a semi-respectable readership based on politics; I'm not going to just turn this into Ace's 80's Music & Movies Fan Club. But, hey, when I've got nothing much interesting to say about politics anyway, why not talk movies?

Okay, so this is a dumb little quiz I've thought about for exactly three seconds. I can't guarantee that my answers are actually right-- I'm very sketchy about this In the Dark question, for example. But, as Jack Burton says, "What the hell."

Absolutely NO GOOGLING. You either know it or you don't, Chief. Violators will be hunted down and killed.

1) Name three songs by The Fixx.

2) What was INXS's first legtimate hit? (I'm looking for the radio hit of Shaboo Shabah. That's before Listen Like Thieves and Kick.)

3) Asked before, but I'll ask again, because it's a cool question series:

a) Name the one human being who has been assaulted and/or killed by an Alien (from Alien), a Predator, and a Terminator.

b) Apart from the person who is the answer to a), name three other people who've been assaulted and/or killed by both an Alien and a Terminator.

c) Apart from the person who is the answer to a), name one other person who's been assaulted and/or killed by both a Terminator and a Predator. (This is sort of a trick question.)

4) What is the (original) Green Arrow's real name? Bonus points for the new Green Arrow's name.

5) Name as many human Green Lanterns, former or active, as you can. Don't give me those silly alien ones. Well, you can show off, but I'll have no idea if you're right or not.

6) Name the original leader of the IMF (the Mission Impossible team, not the int'l monetary fund); the actor who played him; where you've seen him lately; and (I think I know the answer to this!) why he quit the Mission: Impossible show.

7) What is the connection between Genesis' ABACAB and Billy Squier's In the Dark? (Hint: This is a music-geek question; Caveat: I only heard a DJ say this, and I have no idea if it's actually true)

8) (Asked before) Who's been defeated by James Bond, Axel Foley, and Prince?

9) How fucking hot is Joanna Whalley Kilmer, especially in The Man Who Knew Too Little in the French Maid outfit? NOTE: If you say "not hot at all," you are no longer allowed to read this site.

10) What was Val Kilmer's character's name in "Willow"? Bonus points: How bad did that movie suck?

11) What is Sylvester Stallone's improbable name in the arm-wrestling extravaganza Over the Top, and what signature move does he do to will himself to win?

12) What's Kim Cattral's name in Big Trouble in Little China? Bonus: What is Jack Burton's answer when asked, "Aren't you even going to kiss her?" as he leaves at the end of the film?

13) What are the first and last songs on Elvis Costello's Punch the Clock?

14) In Prince's U Got the Look, he says "Your face is jammin'," and "your body's" something else. What?

15) Name Badfinger's one and only hit. Who produced the record?

16) You all know Ballroom Blitz. Name another song by The Sweet.

17) Name one song by April Wine.

18) Name one song by (ahem-- no one's going to get this) by Planet P.

19) Name one song by Red Rider. It's a big one, really. And bonus: What's that guy's latest hit? That's an undeniably big one.

20) Name the only hit by Talk Talk.

21) Name two songs by Golden Earring. Everyone knows one. But I need two.

22) Duran Duran split up in the late eighties to form a couple of side-groups. What was the name of the Simon LeBon/Nick Rhodes group, and what was their hit (or semi-hit)?

23) What heavily promoted guitar prodigy sung and performed "Beat's So Lonely"?

24) What three fairly-major actors show up in bit parts in Fast Times at Ridgemont High? (I think they're all Spicoli's buddies.)

25) In Fast Times, Ratner is advised that he shouldn't care if a girl "something, something, something, or something." His toes should still be "tapping." Fill in the blanks.

26) "No, take that back." What's the context? (For some reason, we said this a lot in high school. Like, a lot.)

27) Ratner is advised that he should always, whenever possible, play a certain side of a certain album on a date. What album, which side? And: how well does he take this advice?

28) What color are Peter Parker's eyes in the comic books?

29) In Blade Runner, how many androids does Dekker's chief tell him have escaped and must be hunted down? How man androids actually seem to actually be named and accounted for in the film?

30) What band did Joan Jett start out with, and which band-mate from that band turned out to have a so-so career as a heavy metal chick?

31) Cory Haim has an, ahem, curious poster up on his wall in The Lost Boys. Who's on that poster? HINT: It ain't Nastassia Kinsky with the snake, I'll tell ya that.

32) What's Robocop's actual full name?

33) What TV show does Robocop's son enjoy watching, from which Robocop gets his gunslinging manuever?

34) What's Kurt Russel's character's name (first initials required!) in The Thing?

35) No one's going to get this, because it was left on the cutting room floor: In The Thing, Childs and Palmer have a joint, ahem, project together. Their mutual hobby and interest is actually never shown in the actual movie. But hey-- it's trivia. What do these two do together in their spare time?

36) Deleted from some television showings and early videotapes of The Thing is a pop song (the only one, I think) that appeared in the original movie. What was the song?

37) What is spray-painted on the broken-down tractor-trailer seen in the first few minutes of The Road Warrior? (The trailer is of course seen later on, too.)

38) Who do the Oasis Children mistake Mad Max for in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome? (Need a name; we all know what they think his job is.)

39) In the Mad Max series, it's always kind of vague about what the nature of the apocalypse was that destroyed the world. But in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, there does seem to be a clue. What's the clue?

40) What's Mad Max's actual name?

Well, that's all I have for now. Like most trivial questions, they're either too easy or too hard.