Essays, Not Rants! 324: On Rose and Trolls The internet is often a place as terrible as it is wonderful. This past week, Kelly Marie Tran, who played Rose in The Last Jedi, left Instagram (and social media in general) after months of sexist and racist harassment. Months. This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. Daisy Ridley (aka: Rey) left Instagram for much the same reason. Back in 2016 I wrote about Chelsea Cain leaving Twitter after being bullied for writing Mockingbird
Essays, Not Rants! 204: Juggling An AK I’ve had some brushes with virtual reality before, through prototype Oculi and Google Cardboard — working at a game center has its perks. It’s really cool to be able to see a world around you and look around it; one game in particular had a PS3 controller hooked up so you could move too. All very neat stuff, a little gimicky, sure, but it’s exciting to see that level of immersion. Then I had the chance to play Epic’s “
” tech demo today. And wow. L
Essays, Not Rants! 252: Gaming Morality So here's the basic concept of Dishonored 2: the empress has been deposed. You play as either said deposed empress (Emily) or her royal protector (Corvo) and carve a path of revenge against the usurper and her cabal of those who dishonored you (hence the title). Along the way you meet the Outsider who gives you a bunch of magical powers, ranging from teleporting and stopping time to linking enemies together (so if you kill one you kill 'em all!) to strai
Essays, Not Rants! 261: On Visibility and Character Creators I spent well over an hour creating my character in Mass Effect: Andromeda. Not stats and stuff, no, just the aesthetics of his/my face. I love character creators. Maybe it’s an early exposure to The Sims, maybe it’s the simple joy of getting to play god and make people who look like whatever you want. In a game like Mass Effect where half the fun is making choices and carving your own narrative through the galaxy, I find that chara
Man, I'm realizing how much I miss these blogs. Maybe it's the impending implosion of Twitter or how Facebook's functionality has torpedoed itself into oblivion. So maybe I'll start writing here more, doing the old blogging thing used to be a thing.
In the meantime, it's NaNoWrimo and I've an unhinged screed that I'm tryna turn into a proper novel.
Essays, Not Rants! 150: The New Western The superhero genre – since it’s become a genre unto itself and not a subset of science-fiction or action – is really taking off, in case you haven’t noticed. Between Marvel Studios putting out two movies a year, DC’s big plans to do big things, and the companies Marvel sold characters to over the years trying to make good on their investments. It’s big. Some articles I’ve read online have likened the superhero genre to the western. It sounds a touch f
Essays, Not Rants! 072: Humanity, Hubris, and Canceling The Apocalypse Did you ever read The Day of the Triffids? It’s by John Wyndam and was probably the first piece of proper post-apocalyptic fiction I read ten years ago. It’s typical of the genre. We’ve got the world impairing event, the monsters that begin wiping out humanity, and of course the few survivors who band together to try and find a way to continue civilization. It’s a classic. Now, like I’ve said before, science fiction provi
So remember that movie I was making last year? We mixed on Wednesday and I've uploaded it now. Time to submit to festivals and stuff. It's DONE. DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE. I feel like a new mother except I don't want to see my newborn right now because the thing's been gestating for the last eighteen months and geez.
Essays, Not Rants! 200: Performing Truth Twelve years ago I went to the Grand Canyon. While in a town nearby, a couple of guys dressed as cowboys did a shootout. Blank firing guns and all; twelve year old me thought it was real cool. This past Thursday, part of my school trip here in South Africa had us watch a group doing a collection of traditional dances. Also cool. Were they authentic? A cowboy shootout isn’t particularly typical of modern Arizona and Tribal dances celebrating a good hunt
Essays, Not Rants! 013: The Prequels Aren’t So Bad One of the most controversial series of films released within the past twenty years is the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. In all seriousness, the Star Wars prequels do get a lot of flak for not living up to the precedence of the Holy Trilogy. But I'm here to say they're not the travesty of film that a lot of us make them out to be. By no means am I saying they're flawless. I grew up with Star Wars and can't recall a time in my life where I didn
I've been wondering why this latest season of Game of Thrones hasn't felt as enticing as usual, why it feels a little meandering-y. And I think it may be because of a lack of conflict? Last season had clear bits: Tyrion and Varys were going to Meereen (politicking their way there), Jon Snow was trying to save the wildlings (against Alliser), Jamie, with Bron, was trapped in boringland trying to get his daughter-neice back (against the boringones). This season hasn't had that much of a conflict
Essays, Not Rants! 291: On Visceral’s Closure I like Star Wars. I also like video games. So naturally I was very excited back in 2014 when it was announced that Amy Hennig, Creative Director of the first three Uncharted games was heading up a new Star Wars game. And not just any Star Wars game, this was gonna be a big single-player action adventure, the likes of which we hadn't had since 2010’s lackluster The Force Unleashed II. We’d been teased years ago with the announcement of 1313 but that
Essays, Not Rants! 129: Becoming Legend On Thursday a new trailer dropped for Bungie’s Destiny. In the vein of trailers for Bungie’s prior games (like Halo 3: ODST’s
which remains one of my favorite pieces of marketing ever), it doesn’t really tell you much about what the game is like. It’s live action, for crying out loud, not a cutscene, or let alone actual gameplay. Which almost begs the question, how does the game even play? Only, no, the trailer actually does an impressive job of summ
Essays, Not Rants! 350: Ten Movie Challenge Thing There's a lotta images in this one, so rather than working to embed them all here, just click over to the website to read this week's.
Current decision I am wrestling with: Do I pay this month's phone bill OR Do I get Assassin's Creed III off of Amazon for $35 DECISIONS. I CANNOT DO BOTH.
Part Two of TMD's Fourth Annual Movie Awards Yesterday I posted the big movie list. Today's the Awards. As usual we have my rather unusual categories. Now, due to the tardiness of my writing and posting this, I've kinda forgotten a lot of the movies I shortlisted in my head so sometimes I'll just have the winner rather than a bunch of nominees too. —————————— Worst Movie Basically, what sucks. These movies are not so-bad-they're-good, but are so-bad-they're-worse. Nominees: I Am Number Fou
I got a bar! As in, a bar to shoot in. An affordable one. Also, Mr. Robot was just shooting there recently. Go figure. Also got a diner. And it's the diner I go to almost weekly. Woo! And a stunt coordinator has signed on. He's worked on Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Zombieland, and a buttload of other stuff. Paperwork is almost done. Woo! Also totally cast. And I have a Facebook page. Which you should like.
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! 105: Nerd Culture, The Big Bang Theory, and Chuck I stopped watching The Big Bang Theory a couple years ago. Part of the reason was because I was growing tired of it, other part was I simply couldn’t be bothered to keep up with it. For a class, though, I have to write a scene for The Big Bang Theory. This means watching episodes of the show to get a hold of the rhythm and voices of the show. I started watching Big Bang during its second season and enjoyed it for what it wa
