Essays, Not Rants! 149: But What Is A Strong Female Protagonist? I write a lot about strong female characters here, heck, it was my first post. It’s still something I really care about, seeing how often it pops up in my blog posts here. I’ve got a small list of characters I bring up often: Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Chloe Frazer, Katniss Everdeen, Zoë Washburne, etc. Thing is, it’s easy to conflate the idea of a strong female characters with that of a woman who kicks butt. When we compare
I have a ZipCar subscription (ostensibly 'cuz I end up driving film equipment around somewhat often) and I found out that on Monday nights you can rent one for a flat rate of $35 from 6pm to 8:30am. So my brother, his girlfriend, and I decided to hit Brooklyn to do an errand and go to Ikea Ikea for food and some basics. Made sure we drove across both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. But it was not even 10pm. We could have the car for longer. So I asked a couple friends if they were up for
Essays, Not Rants! 148: I'm Complaining About The LEGO Movie Snub Too I’ve made it clear that I don’t really care for movie awards. Mostly because there’s a level of snobbery and predictability to them and also because, well, mostly because of the snobbery. So naturally, like many people, I have great opinions on the stuff I don’t care about. Like how this year’s acting nominations are blindingly whitewashed. Which, sure, happens, but is also incredibly indicative of culture as a whole and
Essays, Not Rants! 147: You Should Really Watch Agent Carter Peggy Carter was an unexpectedly great part of Captain America: The First Avenger. Beyond being a woman in an otherwise very male-dominated cast, she held her own and served an important role in the progression of the story’s arc. Then a One-Shot on Iron Man 3’s BluRay had her tackling sexism and bad guys in a post-World War II setting. All the while there was talk of a tv show happening, and then it was planned, and then this past T
Essays, Not Rants! 146: Concerning Hobbits I finally saw The Desolation of Smaug Thursday night, and with that out of the way saw Five Armies yesterday. So it’s time to talk about them as a whole, since the trilogy’s so interconnected you’d think they were supposed to just be two movies and not three. But first, it has to be said that what the movies do well, they do well. Any scene with Smaug is wonderful; he looks great and Benedict Cumberbatch turns in a fantastic performance. The bits in
Done with the Fall of my Junior year! Yes, this is late, but that's because I've been busy with people who are leaving for winter break (though why they'd wanna leave the city is beyond me). In any case, this means time to relax and work and make money. Celebratory fistbump with celebratory-purchase-Iron-Man-in-Space-Armor! (Celebratory mixing-alcohol-with-video-games comes after I clean my room)
Essays, Not Rants! 144: Of Movies and North Korea I have a strange fascination with a certain North Korean dictator. Maybe it’s because he’s barely eight years older than me, hangs out with Dennis Rodman, and tyrannically rules a country of 25 million people with a combination of a cult-of-personality and sheer terror. Like I said, fascinating. So naturally I was really looking forward to The Interview. I had passes to a preview of it on Thursday and was all set. Only, it turns out, North
Now kindly unclaw yourself from my cork and let me at my Inspiration Juice*. Filed under: Creative Uses for Skull Spiders *TMD's Creatively Named Blog does not support the unwarranted use of Inspiration Juice for paper-writing as it is a delicate practice and takes a great deal of skill to arrive at the optimum level of Inspiration.
Essays, Not Rants! 143: The Mustache of Self-Actualization I use this blog to hash out ideas for papers sometimes. Writing weekly helps me get ideas sorted or even just to keep churning out 600-800 word rants essays keeps me on my toes. One thing I’ve found myself needing to work on recently is zeroing in on one aspect of a work rather than only looking at the big picture. So I thought I’d do that. “All great men have mustaches,” says Andy Samberg’s character, Rod early in Hot Rod, hence his
Essays, Not Rants! 141: That Teaser I saw The Phantom Menace for my eighth birthday. It wasn’t the first Star Wars film I saw, nor was it the first I saw in theaters (I have the vague recollection of seeing A New Hope when it was rereleased in Singapore). But it was a new Star Wars movie and I loved it unaware of its flaws. A teaser for the new new Star Wars dropped yesterday and I am so freaking excited. First off, it’s a new Star Wars, which, has had me pumped for quite some time. But se
Essays, Not Rants! 140: The Pay Off I liked Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. when it first aired. Its potential was a big reason, as was, well, bits with characters. There was little else like it on tv and hey, I’m always on board for something science fiction, especially if it’s in the Marvel-verse. Granted, the show meandered for quite a while, but I enjoyed it all the same for what it was. Monster-of-the-week and decent characters, so hey, I was in. Then the show got good. Really good.We’re a solid
Essays, Not Rants! 139: Representation, Big Hero 6, and Me I saw Big Hero 6 last Saturday, a couple days after Interstellar. They’re very different movies, different beasts. I’m not sure yet which one I like more, but there’s one thing that makes Big Hero 6very special. But first let’s talk about me. I’m one of those weird people who can claim two races. No, not the mix of mayonnaise and sour cream that is the 1/4 Irish, 1/4 German, 1/8 Polish, 1/3 English, 1/24 Swedish mixes, I’m Asian an
CAPTAIN MARVEL MOVIE! CAPTAIN MARVEL MOVIE! CAPTAIN MARVEL MOVIE! CAPTAIN MARVEL MOVIE! CAPTAIN MARVEL MOVIE! CAPTAIN MARVEL MOVIE! I DO NOT HAVE A GIF FOR HOW EXCITED THIS MAKES ME
Ghosts That We Knew is officially funded! As in all production costs are covered! I owe this to a couple of you for helping with the movie; expect to get a link to see it when it's done sometime in December. Still want a chance to get in on this? Any additional funds will enable me to go bigger with post-work for a more polished finished product. There's one more day for it! Again, thank you all.
Essays, Not Rants! 136: Let’s Talk About My Movie In case you haven’t heard, I’m making a movie. Not just that, but I need your help to make it happen. Here’s why. “Ghosts That We Knew” is a story about not being alright. Becca, the protagonist, isn’t where she thought she’d be in her life Things haven’t been going the way she’d hoped they would and she’s stuck. With all that comes the nagging doubts in the back of her head, voices that remind her of how life’s not working out. I wanted to
Essays, Not Rants! 135: Superhero Overdose If you haven’t heard, DC recently announced their cinematic plans for the next six years. We’ve got a Justice League movie, a Wonder Woman movie, one with the Flash, one with Aquaman, a Green Lantern movie, and so on. It’s DC’s answer to Marvel’s Avengers. They’re looking to emulate Marvel’s formula, releasing two a year. Not only that, it looks like most of the Justice League roster from the cartoon is getting their own movie (except Martian Manhunte
There was a moment tonight, at the Lego Store Event, when the Bionicle folks said "anything you build tonight you can take home." Deevee's face lit up and all of us made a mad dash for the pieces bin. Some people built part hogs (I have never seen so many ball joints on a technic axle before), some built multi-armed multi-weaponed multi-headed beings, I... well, I did this: I even added gear functionality! I wasn't near the actual sets, hence some of the not-rightness in comparison to the
I'm skipping class on Thursday. ...to go to New York Comic-Con, particularly the LEGO panel. I'm fairly excited, especially given that I didn't go last year (and wasn't this year until Good Stuff Happened), so, yay! Also there are a couple other interesting panels happening that day I wanna go to, so score. Of course, I'm missing out on Narrative Investigations and Militaries and Militarization, two classes that are absolutely fascinating. But hey, as a friend of mine told me; make New Yo
Is so much work, man. Got forms on forms on forms to fill out, crew members to assemble, roles to cast, and locations to find. D'you have any idea how friggin' difficult it is to find an apartment to shoot in in New York (when you don't have one)? The apartment itself isn't so much the issue as is the "hey friend, I need to film a movie, can I take over your home for a weekend wherein I redecorate it, bring in 12-15 cast and crew people, and I shoot for 12 hours a day?" Surprisingly, it's a ha
Essays, Not Rants! 131: In Defense of Destiny’s Story I talk about video games a lot on this blog, because I love them and play a lot of them. I also write about storytelling because it’s kinda my thing. Now, there’s a lot to say about video game narrative, which, honestly, can apply to narrative in general. Games are special because narrative — or even story of any sort — isn’t necessary for a good game (See: Pacman, or better yet,Pong). But, contrary to what game designers like Jonathan Bl
If you've been reading Essays, Not Rants! you'll have realized that I was a huge fan of the movie Chef, in no small part to the food. I love cooking (and eating), so a movie about it was a pleasure. Having recently coming across the recipe for the Pasta That Seduced Scarlett Johansson, the girlfriend and I decided to make it for dinner. Dang. It was good.
Essays, Not Rants! 130: Background Details There’s a building I can see outside my window that’s under construction. I’m not sure what it’s going to be or where exactly it is, but it looks to be somewhere in TriBeCa. The basic structure of it is there, there’s a crane going up the side, and it looks like the skeleton of a monolith as there aren’t any external walls up yet. There are tiny lights on each floor that glint in the daylight. To my sci-fi-addled mind it looks like something you’d s
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! 128: Of Boyhood I was finally able to see Boyhood this week. It came out over the summer when I was in South Carolina, which is not a good place to be if you want to see the latest indie film (I have yet to see Snowpiercer too). But I did see Boyhood this week and in some respects it's a frustrating movie. There's little structure, if any, to the film. Which makes sense; a movie filmed over twelve years would be hard pressed to tell a single story. A strong narrative usual
