Essays, Not Rants! 044: In Defense of Fan-Fiction I’ve written my share of fan fiction. Be it about Star Wars, Bionicle adventures, or Mega Man stories; trust me: I’ve written my fanfics. Thing is, that was years ago. I’ve hardly done anything remotely fan fictiony (be it an animation or a piece of writing) in years. I guess I grew out of it; I wanted to make my own worlds and not lean on someone else’s work as a basis. I wanted my stories to be mine and independent. Of course, I still read
I feel like I should have mentioned this earlier. For my January term I, and a group from Gallatin at NYU, are off to Spain and Morocco for a couple weeks. We just arrived in Cordoba today after spending the last few days in Madrid (and one in Toledo!). So I guess here are some quick highlights: Sometimes it seems like Spain has a vendetta against free public wifi Walking around Madrid is loads of fun Having epic group meals are fantastic; especially when your university is paying for both
Essays, Not Rants! #043: Old Made New So y’know how Les Misérables came out over Christmas? Of course you do: your neighbor’s been singing it incessantly since (which song? All of them, duh). While musicals are nothing new, Les Misérables was special because they recorded the actors singing live on set and added the orchestration in post-production. Usually, the songs are recorded beforehand and lip-synched to during filming. The route Les Mis took allowed them to try the songs several differe
Essays, Not Rants 040: Villain Protagonists I’m gonna preface this essay (that’s not a rant) by outright saying that I love Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. One of the many things that makes it so wonderful, though, is its deconstruction of its villain protagonist. But I’ll get to that in a bit. Villain protagonists are fun. Whether it’s light like someone with his Freeze Ray trying to impress Bad Horse or as dark as trying to pull off a successful suicide bombing, there’s something to be s
Essays, Not Rants! 039: Final Exam: The Hobbit It’s finals time at NYU. Folks are churning out essays and cramming a semester of information in their heads. So here I’ll be doing something different (but not really): let’s look at The Hobbit. I saw The Hobbit’s midnight showing at the IMAX here. It was good, clearly. Perfect, nah, not quite. Not Return of the King, but then what is? So where’d The Hobbit go right and where’d it go wrong?’ Right off the bat, it’s a great adaption. It went r
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 038: Throwing Burritos One of my courses this semester at NYU is one on Science Fiction. In this particular class we had read and were discussing Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? One of us commented about how Rachael pushing the goat off the building reminded him of that scene in Anchorman where Baxter gets punted off the bridge. The discussion continued, and someone mentioned that in Anchorman, Baxter gets punted off the bridge because Ron throws a burri
Essays, Not Rants! 037: In Defense of Science Fiction You ever caught yourself explaining the conceit of a piece of science fiction and, halfway through, realize how stupid it sounds? No matter how cool it is, it just sounds silly on its way out of your mouth? Compare these two ideas: • A group of kids make a movie and wind up learning about life and moving on in this coming of age film. • A mysterious alien appears in small-town Ohio giving a group of kids the adventure of a lifetime. The
Perks of being an NYU student? $5 tickets to see the opera Aida at the Met. Yeah. It was really cool. And in Italian. But cool. Reeaaal cool. +12 Culture! And yeah, of course we suited up. (this photo was taken while we were lining up for a proper one, figured it deserved to be spiffed up)
Essays, Not Rants! 036: Protagonists And Such Call him the main character, the lead, the hero, the player character; most every good story has a protagonist. He (or she) is the person we follow. Either because they provide the viewpoint and let us into the world or because they’re out on a grand quest. A lot of stories rise and fall based on the protagonist (or lack thereof). The lack of a protagonist in The Phantom Menace is one of its shortcomings. Obi-Wan would make a great one, only he w
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.
Because once upon a time the kid visited a ship when it was berthed in Ireland. And that ship, though it was not my ship, was the successor to my ship. By the transitive property of ships, that makes him cool. Real cool. He's also a neat guy who does a good job of living life and not dying. Which, really, is harder than it sounds. Take it from me. And because he posts entries like this. *raises glass*
Essays, Not Rants! 035: Red Pill So y’know how there’ll be this story but there’s this one break from reality? The one thing that makes this world just a little different from the normal one? It’s pretty much the foundation of the story; the one pill that the audience has to swallow to make the whole story digestible. If we can believe that ‘reality’ is really just a virtual construct and the real real world is a dystopian post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by machines, The Matrix makes perfe
"Hey, wanna take over one of the study rooms and get some homework done?" "Yeah, sounds good." "Man, I've got Astronomy, Creative Writing, and a mess of reading to get through." "Try French philosophy." "Touche. Alright: Reading time!" One Hour Later... Because that cartoon is so much cooler than analytical papers. And probably more intelligent.
Essays, Not Rants! 033: And I Feel Fine I live in New York City. Also, last week New York City and much of the US’ East Coast was hit by a hurricane. Power went out, plumbing failed in the higher floors of NYU’s dorms (that is: mine), and classes were cancelled. Of course, I find this all terribly exciting: this sort of event is what pop-culture has been training me for for years! See, we love post-apocalyptic scenarios. What could be cooler than banding together with a group of friends an
Day Five. Still waiting for power on our floor, but we're comfortable in our scavenging. The flights of stairs are slowly wearing on us. My ragtag band of survivors have decided to venture downtown. No sign of strange alien monsters I took a warm shower this morning at the NYU gym near my dorm. And hey, I will take communal showers if it means warm water. One of my ragtag band of survivors was called home to Philly, so I walked her halfway to Penn Station (or at least to where there were wor
Day 4. Most of the residents of the building fled yesterday when the generator ran out of gas. Emergency power is back now, but the building is deserted. We survivors have found power and plumbing in the deserted floors beneath us. This is a luxury. Once more we are setting out in search of food and potential entertainment in the mysterious land known as 'Uptown'. Weather remains chilly, no sign of wolves. I'm really in survival mode now. My backpack has my laptop, a surge protector, and cha
Day 3. Still no water or power on our floor. My ragtag band of survivors and I intend to head out in search of food and/or epic adventure. If we had power our movie marathon would be The Day After Tomorrow, I Am Legend, and Cloverfield in keeping with the spirit. Currently no sign of zombies. Or roommate. Slept good last night. In bed early, woke up late. Quite wonderful. Raymond and I headed down to Weinstein for lunch: the food was hot and wonderful. Washed up and sat around and charge
My ragtag band of survivors and I headed to the Kimmel building for food an laptop/phone charging. On the way we passed Washington Square Park.' Well. Wow. On our way back we found an open pizza store and feasted like kings. Tonight will involve poker and sacrificing someone's laptop battery for a movie. Tomorrow the ragtag band of survivors will head out into the wild.
Last night, the power went out. Shortly thereafter the Freedom Tower went out. In our dorm we have no power, no water, but we do have wifi. Planning on venturing to other NYU buildings today for charging and food. And exploration. Because this is the closest I'm coming to a post-apocalyptic scenario with an internet connection.
