Essays, Not Rants! 175: In Search of Story I have spent entirely too much of my life playing The Sims. Seriously, since I was first sent a copy of the game by my cousin in 2002 I’ve logged endless hours in the original game and its sequels. I’ve bought expansion packs and borrowed them from friends. What I’m saying is I’ve played a lotta Sims. Now, The Sims is one of those games that there are many ways to play. Personally, I got through my burning/starving/drowning phase relatively quickl
Essays, Not Rants! 174: Whimsy! I finally picked up Ni no Kuni: Wrath of The White Witch during a PlayStation Network flash sale last month. I started playing it this week (I also got Borderlands 2 during the sale and summarily compared it to Ulysses) and, man, I should have gotten this game ages ago. Ni no Kuni is a Japanese RPG with all the trappings of the genre: young kid leaves our world to a fantasy world where he’s gotta save that world from evil. He is, after all, the chosen one. Gif
Essays, Not Rants! 173: But What Does It All Mean? When The Lord of The Rings was first published, there was a lot of talk about its relation to the second World War. It got to the point that in the foreword to a later edition, Tolkien explicitly said that no, it was not in any way an allegory of World War Two. Tolkien wasn’t a huge fan of allegories, to the point where he usually considered them detrimental to the story (and also the biggest flaw of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and The Wa
Essays, Not Rants! 172: Pixel Problems I remember seeing Patrick Jean’s short film “Pixels” when it first hit the internet a few years ago. It’s a cool short film with a fun concept. It does what it does and is great for it. Then there was Freddie Wong’s “
” which took a similar idea and, though not quite as visually spectacular or narratively sound, was a great ode to nerd culture (Lara Croft from Tomb Raider gets in the lander from Lunar Lander!). Then along comes this new movie Pixels, b
Essays, Not Rants! 171: Another Life I’m me. That’s pretty obvious. I’m a biracial guy in my mid-twenties who lives in New York. I’ve had my own relatively interesting life, but at the end of the day it’s mine. Barring some crazy The Matrix or Total Recall-esque invention, I’m only ever going to live my life. It’s the only experience I’ll get. Well, outside of certain kinds of fiction. Fiction offers a window into someone else’s life. The thing is, it’s hard to really make someone experience
So for gins and griggles (but actually for practice) I'm working on a full length screenplay. Because I figured it'd be easier to start from something I decided to write a Captain Marvel movie, because she's the best (this was back before they announced that they were actually make one). Much procrastinating later and I finished a beat sheet a couple weeks ago and am going to script. This is the first script I've written since "Ghosts That We Knew" last August and kinda the first bit of fictio
Essays, Not Rants! 170: Linear Versus Open World E3 was this week, which means most major video game companies were showing off the upcoming games they have lined up. There's a lot to be excited for: Star Wars Battlefront looks great, Dishonored 2 is getting Emily Kaldwin as a protagonist, Kingdom Hearts 3 is finally in development. But me being me, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and the glorious gameplay demo they showed off is what I cared about most. The game looks great, showing again why N
Essays, Not Rants! 169: Narrative Contracts Early on in Borderlands 2 the player encounters a fence of electricity in between them and their goal. Claptrap, the voice over the radio, tells you there’s a fusebox on the other side and that if you run fast enough, you won’t take damage from the fence. Your objective changes, now saying to run into the forcefield. So you do, and it deals damage to your shield and pushes you back. Claptrap suggests you do it again, he says you weren’t running fast
Essays, Not Rants! 168: Cold War Relevance Alright. Quick one today because it’s my birthday and I have plans. I talk a lot about science fiction and how often it works as a way to commentate on current events and what not. Sometimes, it’s a lot easier to look at the interplay of fiction when it’s something that happened in the past (See: Gojira). The Cold War too, which was also when modern science fiction began to really take shape, has great influence on the stories of its time. Ray Bra
Coulda sworn I posted this on Saturday. Ah well. Essays, Not Rants! 167: I’m Going To Use The Word ‘Intertextual’ Because I Want To Intertextuality is a fun word to say. It’s an even funner concept: it’s the idea that one text will reference another. And I'm on a vacation of sorts this week so I'm gonna write about it. See, when intertextual literature lets its world be informed by the outside. Chuck, for example, uses it to inform characters. Characters’ references to Tron or Back to the
Essays, Not Rants! 166: Obligatory Fury Road Entry I haven’t seen any of the old Mad Max trilogy, more for lack of bother than anything. Pop culture osmosis ensured I knew what it was about, though; post-apocalyptic wasteland, lots of leather, cars, machismo. So Fury Road flew below my radar during much of the lead up to its release. That is, until the press surrounding it started to discuss how it was surprisingly feminist and was [annoying] a lot of Men’s Rights Activists. That got my atte
Essays, Not Rants! 165: Top Nine Movies of 2014 Eventually you get to the point when you realize if you keep putting off this list until you’ve seen everything you wanna see you’re never gonna write the darn list. So I’m writing it. So here’s my list of top nine movies for 2014; nine because I’m leaving a space for movies I haven’t seen but want to. And it’s my list, so it’s very, well, me. I liked Birdman well enough and loved Godzilla, but neither quite made the list. These are the ones th
After printing an Akaku a couple weeks ago, I decided I had to go bigger. Print! Done, in my hand, and covered in supports: And then some time digging off the supports... Ain't perfect; sword didn't come out right/at all; but, dude, I've got a TMD I made nine years ago. Dude.
Essays, Not Rants! 164: Let’s Talk About That Whole Black Widow Thing People are mad on the internet. As usual. The hubbub recently, though, is about choices made regarding Black Widow in Age of Ultron. Now, I’m a big fan of Black Widow. I’d really like her to get her own movie and Nathan Edmonson’s run on the comics has been fantastic (issue #13 is framed on my wall). And I’ll be the first to admit that a character beat in Age of Ultron did throw me off for a bit. But I didn’t realize the fur
Essays, Not Rants! 163: Masculinity in Age of Ultron I saw Age of Ultron Thursday night and I have thoughts. There’s the obvious nerd-out factor of the film, and it’s really cool and does a lot of things right (and, arguably, does indeed go smaller than the first Avengers), but those are essays rants for another day. So let’s talk about how the movie portrays the idea of masculinity. Because it’s actually really interesting. Age of Ultron, like The Avengers before it and probably every Mar
I recently learned that I have access to a 3D printer through NYU. That I can use. For free. Because I don't have the time yet to find the plans for an Iron Man gauntlet, I decided to do some digging. Despite losing all my files, I managed to find some old
that I'd emailed Motago so he could render something. Then I decided to start small. Folks. I have a PHYSICAL VERSION of a model I made OVER NINE YEARS AGO. THIS IS THE FRIGGING FUTURE
Caught a 7pm IMAX showing (for the poster!) It's, it's good. Makes a lot of really bold choices. Choices that I like for the most part. Lots of fun character beats. And dude, it feels like a comic book. There are a lot of those really cool HOLY SNAP moments, which, y'know, is fun. 'cuz that's what you want in a comic book movie. Also it's interesting to watch it as someone who now reads comics. Characterization works and there are some cool set ups too. Man. Now to see it again sometime so
Brother and I signed a lease on an apartment today, as neither of us wanna live in dorms next year. It's very much a dinky New York apartment (sixth floor walkup, no sink in the bathroom), but we figure it's got character (also: actual two bedroom, a living room [!]) and it's near our usual haunts (few minutes from some decent bars, not far from my favorite dollar pizza place, near Trader Joe's, near campus), so, yeah, it's a win. Holy [censored] this is what growing up is. My name's on an a
Essays, Not Rants! 162: How Do You Make An Avengers? Avengers: Age of Ultron comes out here in the States in a few days, which makes me realize that we now live in a time where time can be measured in Avengers movies. Which makes me think about three years ago when I was eagerly waiting for the first one to come out. It’s important to look at just how sharply The Avengers affected the current blockbuster landscape. The idea of a bunch of characters from separate films coming together in one
Essays, Not Rants! 161: Chewie, We're Home Every so often on this blog, I am liable to nerd the flip out. ‘cuz as a general rule, I like liking things. Also, I’m a huge nerd, and when what was basically the first thing I was a nerd about does something cool, I”m gonna be there. So let’s talk about The Force Awakens. Again. Though this time it’s less recapping and more analysis. Based on the trailer, and also what was said at Celebration, it’s really sounding like Daisy Ridley’s character Rey
While browsing Twitter after class I realized that Celebration was happening now. And there was a live stream. Couple minutes later Dylan and I had it playing on the projector in the Gallatin lounge. Then they announced that they were about to show the teaser. One of the grad students turned off the lights in the room (because who cares if a couple people are studying, this is Star Wars). Dude. Dude. Dude. Dude. There were cheers. There was swearing (hey, that opening shot of the crashed S
