Man, I want some Legos. And I have a measure of disposable income I could use to by some. And I can probably rearrange some of the shelves in my apartment to accommodate the space. And I'm getting a big paycheck this Friday where I'll get a couple months worth of pay at once. And now that summer's over my electricity bill has gone down. And, y'know, that Palace Cinema looks downright dope. Or that Falcon. Or that new AT-AT. And/or the Hulkbuster. And the set with Miles Morales.
Essays, Not Rants! 190: Signs of the Times The Uncharted games are what got me really into gaming as an adult (well, them and Metal Gear Solid). With the release and my subsequent acquisition of the Nathan Drake Collection, I’ve spent the past couple days replaying Drake’s Fortune, the first game in the series, for the first time in a few years. And the game still holds up, because of course it does. Drake’s Fortune still looks great eight years after it came out (due in some part to the Rem
Essays, Not Rants! 189: This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, JEB! I don’t really talk about politics on this blog…ever. Well, aside from, y’know, the historical or entries on diversity or women in fiction. But every now and then something shows up that’s nonpartisan enough but still related enough to what I usually write about for a good discussion. An interview with Jeb Bush (Or JEB) has been making the rounds lately, wherein he’s asked who his favorite superhero is. This alone is worth n
....the person who directed the music video for the song you're listening to is also the person whose class for which you're currently working on a script.
Essays, Not Rants! 188: The Honest Truth A lot of stories aim to be real. Or as real as you can be while being a, y’know, story. The challenge here, of course, is figuring out what real is. One interpretation of ‘real’ is realistic. No spaceships, because spaceships are far from commercial right now. No superpowers or superheroes, because those aren’t things. And no magic either. Y’know, realism. So like Lost in Translation. It’s about two people in Japan, and just about there. There’s no
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Essays, Not Rants! 187: The Right Hook So I’m using this blog to spitball ideas for a paper. And no, it’s not on boxing. What gets us hooked on a tv show? As in, what is it that makes you keep coming back? What was it about the shows we’re discussing in class — Sherlock, Mr. Robot, Firefly, and Daredevil — that made them stick (or not?). Sherlock is an interesting case. Each episode nears the length of a feature length film, making it an odd hybrid of film and television. But the show hook
Essays, Not Rants! 186: More Thoughts on Destiny’s Story So with my Rationale out of the way, I picked up Destiny’s expansion-sequel The Taken King and put… many… hours into it. It’s a huge improvement on the base game and, for a change, feels like a complete game with stuff like story and what not. Which is great, because Destiny had world building in spades, and now The Taken King is building on it and giving characters actual personalities. These personalities are revealed through some ne
So, as part of being at Gallatin, I've gotta put together a big list of books for my Senior year. Basically, these say what I've studied and all. I also have to write a 8ish page paper on what I've been doing my college career so I can have a two hour talk with three faculty members about it. Anyway, I finished the paper (my rationale) and finalized my booklist. This is that booklist in all its glory:
Essays, Not Rants! 185: When Science Dreams The Martian is an intelligent film. Or at least it expects its viewers to be smart. Within ten minutes the titular astronaut is stranded on Mars and the science fun begins. Unlike another recent movie with Kate Mara as a scientist, it doesn’t take long at all for the movie to get started and we get to watch Matt Damon pull a Robinson Crusoe on Mars. It’s cool, and there’s a lot of science happening that’s remarkably coherent for the most part. What
Essays, Not Rants! 184: Now For Something Old I’m busy this weekend. I’m writing a rationale, essentially a jumbo-sized one of these blog posts about everything I’ve been studying since coming to college to prove that my studies have had a point (which is, currently, Narrative (Re)Construction). As I’m focusing an inane amount of brain power into writing this paper, I don’t have time for a proper post this week. So let’s go back to before Essays, Not Rants! and find something old. The year
Essays, Not Rants! 183: The Question of So What A professor who I had, who I didn’t really like, once told me that I could probably connect any variety of works. But that didn’t necessarily mean I had an essay. Another professor said that you know you’re paper’s successfully if there’s a point that could be proven wrong. Most succinctly, when I presented an idea for a paper to her, yet another professor responded with “So [beep]ing what, Josh; so [beep]ing what?” Which, y’know, is a really g
Essays, Not Rants! 182: Same Story But Different Pacific Rim is predictable; you’re not gonna win any prizes for pointing that out. It’s not like The Last of Us or District 9, which subvert the expectations of the audience. When you watch Pacific Rim you know what’s gonna happen; Raleigh and Mako will team up, something will happen that lets them prove themselves, and there has to be some last minute complication. Yet it’s an absolutely fantastic movie, and one of my own favorites. No, it’s
Essays, Not Rants! 181: Expository Conflict Othello really hits the ground running. The first time we see the titular character in Shakespeare’s play he’s on trial in a war room. Now, it’s important to note that this is his introduction, this is when we learn who he is. The easiest way to clue the audience in would be to just give us an infodump. Have people go “This is Othello, the Moor, who’s a general, and married to Desdemona, a senator’s daughter” in some fashion. No, it’s certainly not
Essays, Not Rants! 180: Can Art Be Fun? I’m still reading a bunch and my current book, Extra Lives, is essentially critical theory on video games as literature. This divide between what makes something ‘art’ is something I’m kinda big on, so it’s a fascinating read. There’s one thing that Tom Bissell says which struck me: that because video games must be, by nature, fun, they’re seen as being less artistic or literary than other mediums. Which, well, kinda has a point. When was the last time
Essays, Not Rants! 179: Learning From (Others’) Failure You can learn a lot about storytelling from taking in great stories. Let The Last of Us teach you about immersive storytelling. Don Quixote effortlessly plays with the characters’ relation to the narrative. Learn how to have a bunch of different character arcs in motion from The Avengers. Bad stories can also teach you a lot, especially bad movies. I’m not talking so-bad-it’s-good stuff like The Room where the movie fails so hard it cre
Essays, Not Rants! 178: (Re)Constructing Narratives Yes, this is sort of a follow up to to last week’s post, but in my defense I’ve been reading an anthropological book on inclusion/exclusion stuff. So bear with me. We need more narratives, that’s a given. Meaning we need there to be more versions of what can happen to people, and what people can be. Because when there’s only one accepted narrative, the outsiders become othered. Having more narratives encompassing more people, more takes on
Essays, Not Rants! 177: Importance of Different Narratives Narratives are important. They don’t just affect how we interpret events happening around us, but influence the way we see the world. Stories tell us what to expect. The question then is what narrative do we hear? Chances are, there’s an ‘accepted’ version of it all. Y’know the saying about history being written by the victors? That’s the thing about narratives: they tend to be established by whoever’s in power (usually meaning whit
Essays, Not Rants! 176: Why I Take Issue With Johnny Storm Being Black So y’know that new Fantastic Four movie coming out next week? It caused a bit of uproar when casting was announced since Michael B. Jordan’s playing Johnny Storm, a character who, in the comics, has been white. This is further complicated by the fact that his sister, Susan Storm, is being played by Kate Mara, who is rather obviously white. This ‘race lift’ given to Johnny Storm has caused quite the hullabaloo. In an appa
