Essays, Not Rants! 235: Do Spoilers Spoil? Darth Vader has Luke Skywalker on the ropes, cornered, defenseless, and missing a hand. But rather than killing the Rebel, Vader offers for Luke to join him. Luke refuses. Undeterred, Vader throws doubt on those Luke trusts and utters one of the most famous lines in cinema: “No, I am your father.” It’s shattering, throwing everything Luke knows into disarray. But Luke doesn’t join Vader, choosing instead to cast himself into the abyss below. Als
Been listening to Relient K's new record more or less incessantly since yesterday. Gotta say, I really like it. No, not quite as good as Forget and Not Slow Down, but that's more because it's incredibly different (And FNSD is one of my favorite albums ever (up there with Vice Verses and How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and Scars and Stories). But I really like the differentiness. To that, "If I Could Take You Home" is an early favorite ("Don't Blink" and "When You Were My Baby" are other highli
Essays, Not Rants! 299: Long Live The Resistance It's really easy to see the original Star Wars as an anti-establishment film. Han, Luke, and Leia are a trio of rebels vying to undermine and overthrow the Man. And given that the movie is a product of the 70s, it just might be intentional. Empire has the Man crackdown on our plucky heroes, and Return of The Jedi culminates in the final usurpation. Of course, within this framework, any story about plucky rebels can be interpreted as anti-esta
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! 247: Thoughts on the Prequel Trilogy Last year I watched all three of the original Star Wars movies and commented on them in the lead to The Force Awakens. Since we’ve got another prequel coming out, I figured I’d do the same thing for the prequels before Rogue One (which I’m seeing on Thursday [!!!] on the biggest freaking screen in New York City[!!!]). Now, I have a soft spot for the prequels, so this isn’t going to be the angry nerd ranting you may expect. In fact, I
Essays, Not Rants! 234: #AsianCowboy I was vaguely aware of the casting for the new Magnificent Seven when it was first announced, but more so for the fact that it reminded me that I really needed to watch The Seven Samurai (which I still haven’t…) Anyway, since then trailers for the new Magnificent Seven have been released and there’s been a little bit of buzz around it and reviews have been coming out. What’s most caught my attention — and what makes me really wanna see it — is actor Byung
Essays, Not Rants! 295: Diversity in Middle-earth The Lord of The Rings is at once both one of my favorite books and one of my favorite film trilogies. And I don't really feel the need to write another sentence justifying that. In any case, I reacted with some consternation upon finding out the Amazon was, having attained the rights to Tolkien’s world, developing a new series set in Middle-earth. On the one hand, we get to return to that world. On the other, it's hard to top Peter Jackson’s
Essays, Not Rants! 294: Spoilers and Reveals Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father. That’s a spoiler, right? What about Luke fights Darth Vader in Empire Strikes Back? How about Yoda’s the green dude Luke meets on Dagobah? Or Luke goes to Dagobah? Where does it stop being a spoiler and become plot information? Spoilers used to mean something that’d, well, spoil a surprise, ruin the story. It’d be telling someone that Lando betrays Han in Empire. Since at the point, the story seems to be pre
Essays, Not Rants! 116: Feels Like It Ever played Star Wars? No, not Force Unlesahed or Rogue Squadron, we’re talking the Star Wars game, the original 1983 arcade game from Atari. It’s not the most complex game out there. In lieu of sprites the game uses crude vector graphics to give you an outline of TIE Fighters (that shoot fireballs), laser turrets, and the classic trench run. Using the yoke you fly through space, attack TIE Fighters and dodge obstacles. Like the Millennium Falcon, the game
Essays, Not Rants! 219: Being There It’s a stormy night in 1995 and you’re a college student just returned from a year abroad. During that time your family moved to a large house on the outskirts of town. A house, you discover, without anyone home that looks like it’s been stolen. That’s how Gone Home opens, a game where you assume the role of Kaitlin and explore your new house, trying to figure out what happened during the year you were away. Now, Gone Home toes the line of being a video
Essays, Not Rants! 376: Bad Taste I really like Iron Man 2. This is not a popular opinion; the movie is usually listed near the bottom of MCU movie rankings, especially when held up against its predecessor. But I really like it all the same. I suppose there’s no accounting for bad taste. Perhaps there’s some explanation for my deep affection for this much-maligned movie when the context with which I first saw the film is taken into account. The summer of 2010 saw my heart acting up with
So this is my late post-Spring Break entry. For the first time in my college career(?) I left the City during Spring Break, this time to visit my girlfriend in Paris, where she's studying abroad (because she's super smart and writes essays in French when she's not sciencing in English). Now, despite the whole growing-up-on-a-ship thing, I'd never actually been to mainland France (Martinique, yes, but that's practically a different country sorta), so going to France made country 55 for me, a
Essays, Not Rants! 053: Earn Your Ending Did you see Warm Bodies? Because you really should. It’s a great movie (and has zombies). And I mean a really great movie. We’re talking that sucker gets added to my BluRay collection the day it comes out. Of course, the comparisons to Zombieland are inevitable and rightly so: both have the same ‘genre’ and tone: zombie films with a level of comedy and romance. It’s their themes, however, that set them apart. Warm Bodies is overflowing with heart. Se
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! 215: Order, and Narrative Thereof I’m one of those people who will respect you less if you pick an album to play, and then play it on shuffle. See, there’s a deliberate rhyme and reason for the order of songs on an album. U2’s War needs “Surrender” to be its penultimate song. After an album about war, violence, and fighting for hope, we have a song about giving up which leads into “40,” an adaption of the Bible’s Psalm 40. It’s crucial that the album ends there, in that s
So I've spent more time since Mass Effect Andromeda came out playing the game than at work. Or sleeping. Or working on scripts and schtuff. How's your week been?
Essays, Not Rants! 279: Top Nine Movies of 2016 There comes a point in time when you realize you aren’t going to get around to watching those movies on your list. And then it’s almost August and you’re still thinking about 2016 movies and honestly it’s just embarrassing at this point. But then again, that’s why it’s a Top Nine, to save one space for that extra movie. Because there are movies out there I know I’d like, like Swiss Army Man or maybe Patterson. And Midnight Special. Man, I can’t
Essays, Not Rants! 084: Genre Blending Originally posted October 25th 2013 Remember when superhero movies were just becoming a thing? They usually fell into the same pattern: someone gets powers and saves the world. Fairly straight forward, right? Sure, there were different approaches to the idea: X-Men drew on themes of discrimination and Spider-Man was about a hero trying to balance life and superheroing. The Dark Knight, Watchmen, and The Incredibles deconstructed several tropes associated
Essays, Not Rants! 286: Stepping Away Ed Skrein – the dude who played Ajax in Deadpool — made headlines recently. Not for taking a role but rather for stepping down from one. See, he was tapped to be in the reboot adaption of Heckboy. But the character he was slated to play, Major Ben Daimio, is Japanese-American in the comics, and Ed Skrein is decidedly, er, white. Upon finding out that his casting would be whitewashing, Skrein stepped down from the role in order to not be part of that machin
Essays, Not Rants! 377: Shoes My favorite part of Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe might just be a tiny beat that happens part way through the movie. It’s hardly a big moment, just a bit of table setting that, for someone like me, holds all the more import. There’s a party, and a couple kids are chasing each other. They run up the steps to the house and, without pausing to think, slip off their shoes before entering. The camera follows them as they run through the house and to the back door wher
