Essays, Not Rants! 089: Why I (seldom) Write About Ships I grew up on a ship. I also like writing. Now, these two should go hand-in-hand. Write about living on a ship, it’s what you know! But then, who lives on a ship. No one would believe that. So I write science fiction. Because it’s easier to believe folks living on a spaceship than on a real ship. Less time explaining stuff. Also, I really like science fiction. But, and I do get asked this, why don’t I write about a real ship instead?
Essays, Not Rants! 123: Why Guardians of the Galaxy Will Be Awesome Guardians of the Galaxy is not a Marvel movie I expected to ever happen. Not because they’re so, well, out there, but because prior to the announcement of the film I had no idea who they were. Unlike Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, these guys had missed the general cultural osmosis that many superheroes enjoy. So I read the comics; with the ‘new’ lineup from 2008, not from 1969. Simply put, the comics were weird. There’
Essays, Not Rants! 191: Why Easy A Is An Excellent Example of Storytelling I saw Easy A when it first came out a few years ago. Wanted to because Emma Stone (of Zombieland fame), Will Gluck (who did Fired Up!), and The Scarlet Letter (which I, being a dutiful student in 11th grade English, read). I liked it a bunch and so when it was on sale recently I picked it up. And I finally re-watched it. And I think I like it even more. Because Easy-A is an excellent piece of storytelling. There’s a
Essays, Not Rants! 275: Why Am I Reading This? There aren’t a lot of books that take place in Singapore. Wikipedia’s category page for Novels Set in Singapore lists only twenty-six. Now, there are books missing from that list (I added one to the list while writing this), but let’s take this as a sample group. A cursory glance shows that many of these books are not set in contemporary Singapore, but rather around the second World War or before the country was established as it is now. None of t
Essays, Not Rants! 046: Why Abrams Is The Man For Star Wars A little more than a week ago it was officially announced that JJ Abrams would be directing the new Star Wars. Some people met this news with a measure of caution. Myself? I think Abrams is the person to direct it. L ook at Mission: Impossible III. Abrams made his directorial debut with the sequel to this established series. He kept strongly to the themes and style of the original TV show (so I’m told). Not only was it considered
Essays, Not Rants! 251: Who Is The Everyman? I talk a lot about the concept of the everyman on this blog, though mostly about how they don't have to be white guys. And there's a reason it's such an important thing. Spider-Man shows you don't have to be rich and smart like Iron Man or an alien like Superman to be a superhero, you can just be a nebbish kid from Queens. It's the whole point of the everyman: anyone can be a hero. Especially you, because, after all, the everyman is meant to be you.
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! 371: Where’s My History Lesson? The Assassin’s Creed games might be my ultimate guilty pleasure of a video game. Some of them are really good (II and Brotherhood), some… less so (the original and, honestly, III). Then there’s one like Black Flag which has a really cool central mechanic (ships!) but really accentuates the worst parts of the series (missions where you have to follow someone and then not be seen… and failing makes you have to slowly walk with the followee agai
Essays, Not Rants! 071: Where’s My Dang Black Widow Movie? Comic-Con was last week. As in, the, Comic-Con. And we got news, like how Avengers 2 is actually Age of Ultron and how we’re having a team up between Superman and Batman and how there’s gonna be a friggin’ Star Wars and Phineas & Ferb crossover. They also screened a new Marvel short, one that focuses on Agent Carter from Captain America, who you’ll remember as his love interest. Also, Black Widow will be having a large role in Capt
Essays, Not Rants! 213: Where TMD Explains Why You Should Fund His Movie There are five days left for my movie’s Kickstarter. So that means it’s time for me to go on a spiel about why you should fund The Conduits. ‘cuz I’m really proud of this story and want you to be able to see it when it’s done without all that festival hoopla (and just for $9!). So what is this whole production? The Conduits is fundamentally a student film, given that it’s being worked on primarily by students and being
Essays, Not Rants! 138: Where No One Has Gone Before Let’s talk about space, because of Interstellar. Now, it’s hard to discuss the film because so much of what makes it Interstellar is because its based so fundamentally on the curves and turns of the plot. So for the sake of avoiding spoilers and ruining everything, we’re not talking about Interstellar’s story. Instead let’s talk about the set up; about the initial question asked by the film, the question of space travel. Many of the early
Essays, Not Rants! 059: Where It Needs To Go So here’s the deal you make when you tell a story. Actions have consequences. I don’t mean of the physical variety (you destroy a support, the roof caves in), no, I mean emotional consequences. Sometimes you have to deal with those. Well, sometimes you don’t. Look at romances like Star Wars or other more light hearted fare. Han gets frozen in carbonite, Leia’s planet gets destroyed, and Luke blows up the Death Star and everyone on it. But the movi
Essays, Not Rants! 329: Where Do We Go From Here? (Or Infinity War Part Two) This post is going to be about what just might happen in the next Avengers movie. And about what happened in Infinity War too, so if you’re not a fan of spoilers, this is your warning. I lost my voice when I saw the Infinity War’s stinger the first time. Seeing Captain Marvel’s symbol appear on Nick Fury’s space pager elicited quite the roar/scream from me for quite the obvious reason; she’s long been my favorite su
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! 278: What’s The Point of Movies? I’m replaying Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (and it is wonderful) and I can’t help but to be reminded that there’s supposed to be a movie adaption of this game happening. Like, it’s been in development since 2010. Every now and then there’ll be some announcement (apparently Tom Holland is playing a young Nathan Drake now?), but then it fizzles out into the background. Kinda like how film adaption of The Last of Us went, there was a bunch of buzz
Essays, Not Rants! 194: What Makes A Superhero Story? Spike Lee was a guest on The Nightly Show the other day and one of the things they discussed briefly was people of color as superheroes. Lee offered up Bruce Lee as an example of an Asian superhero. Which raises an interesting question, what exactly is it that makes a superhero narrative? Could be the narrative type. The typical superhero plot follows an outsider/everyman (so, Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Clark Kent) who has some special abi
Essays, Not Rants! 011: What Makes A Good Sequel Sometimes, it feels like everything’s a sequel. Last year we got no less than twenty-eight sequels. In one year. Heck, all but one of 2011‘s top ten blockbusters (that one is Smurfs, but we won’t talk about that) were sequels. Well, this veritable deluge of sequels wouldn’t be that bad if it weren’t for the fact that so many sequels flat out suck. The mentality behind so many sequels seems to be something like “hey, that worked so well the fir
Essays, Not Rants! 201: We Get The Subtext, Alright? Being stuck in a plane for sixteen hours is only somewhat alleviated by in-flight entertainment. Which is somewhat undermined by a dismal selection of comedies. Because when you’re trapped in a flying aluminum tube, you don’t wanna have to think too hard. Also, I once watched Fruitvale Station on a plane and I was in no mood to have a repeat of that emotional rollercoaster. So I decided to watch The Iron Giant for the first time in over a
Essays, Not Rants! 288: Don’t Need No Adaptation Your Name is an anime film about a couple teens that randomly wake up in each others bodies. One’s a guy at an elite school in Tokyo, the other a girl who lives in a more traditional, rural town. Naturally, hijinks ensure, and I’m left weepy in the cinema as the credits roll. It’s very much a body swapping love story, but it’s one that holds extra depth due to its intense focus on longing. Much of the romance that blooms between Taki and Mitsu
Essays, Not Rants! 335: Watch This Web Series Back in February I got hired to direct a web series. Which is a pretty cool sentence to get to type. The web series, The Invincible Osiris Jackson, is quite easily described as a nerdy, gay romance. The showrunner and I both used Scott Pilgrim vs The World as a big touchstone for the series, both in its integration of video game tropes into film, and also its tone of both comedy and earnestness. After spending a couple months casting, finding a c
My wall thinks so: But nah, it was epic. Perfect? No, not quite (I'll get to that), but certainly epic. I like how they're bringing in Dol Guldur and all. Also they made each dwarf distinct, even if they do get rushed over a lot. So what'd I change? Pacing, mostly. Take a critical hand and cut away. The stone giant battle while really cool, was unnecessary and slowed it down. Same with Radagast's introduction, could have cut a few minutes off of that too. Just bits here and there to
Essays, Not Rants! 355: War Games But Without The War I’m playing Mass Effect: Andromeda again, trying to polish off my second playthrough and nab that elusive Platinum trophy. With the sheen of "Oooh, it’s new" worn off, the game is decidedly a buggy mess, UI popups stay on screen long after they should have disappeared and I’ve spent an entire cutscene viewing my character as a party member blocked the camera (after we walked through a door whose opening animation didn’t happen). It’s a bu
Essays, Not Rants! 308: Wakanda Forever So. Black Panther. Right now, I want nothing more than to geek the crud out about this movie. It’s, wow. Ryan Coogler’s quickly become one of my favorite directors (courtesy of Creed and Fruitvale Station), and this movie is the icing on the cake. There’s so much to love about it. The plot moves along at a clip pace, so much so that I found myself wanting more when it ended. Its supporting cast is as interesting as its leads, with everyone getting th
