Essays, Not Rants! 342: Classically Petty Don Quixote is a pretty important book, to put it mildly. Often counted one of – if not the – greatest book ever written, it’s definitely something you can categorize under Serious Literature. It’s also home to some outstanding pettiness and a magnificent take that to fan-fiction. The book was hugely popular right from when it was first published. It didn’t take too long for another writer to think there was something to this delusional adventurer a
Essays, Not Rants! 083: Awesome Non-Combatants Originally published October 18th 2013 During my idle perusal of the vast wastes of internet I came across a review of this past week’s episode of Agents of SHIELD. What caught my interest was one of the reviewer’s criticisms: there were still too many techie-type characters who couldn’t fight. And that that was lame and frustrating. Now, besides wrong, I find this criticism fascinating. Because yes, it is interesting to see an action-orientated
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! 207: Living in Science Fiction Is the movie Gravity science fiction? This was the discussion a friend of mine and I were having while talking about science fiction and fantasy winning Oscars — Gravity got Best Director, but is it really science fiction? Wikipedia, IMDb, and such call it science fiction, given that it’s, well, in space. That’s usually the threshold for science fiction. But something in space is hardly imaginative anymore. An astronaut who just returned fr
Warning: Grown Up Rant/Tirade/Ramble Approaching I've been keeping a budget via spreadsheet for the last couple years. A basic one where I've money set aside for various categories (food, transport, entertainment, misc, alcohol, bills), note down how much I get in paychecks and put in savings (then categorize what I'm saving up for). Now, I'm in the market for a good app to do it for me, because I can be lazy with this budget thing. And there are a lot of great budget apps out there, but the
Essays, Not Rants! 101: The (Lego) Hero’s Journey, Part Two It’s been a few weeks since The LEGO Movie came out and proved that everything was indeed awesome. As I said I would before it came out, I’m going to break down The LEGO Movie with The Hero’s Journey. But wait. Two things you gotta do before you read on. First; read that blog post. I’m not gonna bother explaining The Hero’s Journey again. Second: watch the movie. Seriously. It’s a great movie in the first place and, equally import
Essays, Not Rants! 331: Good Bad Movies I like bad movies. I really do. Take Outcast as an example; its plot is pretty simple: Former crusader Hayden Christensen winds up in China where he’s protecting the rightful prince from said prince’s vengeful older brother. Also, Nic Cage is in it as Hayden Christensen’s old mentor-turned-hermit who’s acting in a very different movie from everyone else. All this to say, it’s an utter delight. Not that it’s a good movie; Outcast has a host of issues, ran
Essays, Not Rants! 030: The Consistency of Continuity The way reality (and by proxy, stories) works is that if one thing happens then something else does. Because of this, we have a natural sequence of events that happens. It’s a consistent sequence of events that have bearing on each other. Man, describing continuity is difficult. Basically, if something happened, it happened. Events that happen influence the next one. Yet how much this affects the story depends on, well, the story. Let
Holy snap buckets. Here we go. It's movie time. Spent most of today driving around with fake concrete barricades in a van picking up last minute equipment and props. Also: we're shooting with a skeleton crew tomorrow. When we weren't planning on. WOOHOO ADVENTURE. This is happening. Here we go. Also, because I haven't advertised it enough; Facebook page here! And Kickstarter here! I should probably get some sleep in the meantime.
Essays, Not Rants! 351: Exploring Worlds I have a complex relationship with open-world games. On the one hand, it’s real neat to get to go explore a big world and do stuff. On the other, I really like the more catered, narrative experience offered by more linear games. On the other other hand, open-worlds are kinda the genre du jour for single-player video games, so I’m gonna end up playing them no matter what. But first, a definition of open-world games. The idea here is that rather than h
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! 344: First Man(liness) I’m a little tired of manly manliness in cinema. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always have a soft spot Predator, Die Hard, or a good Spaghetti Westerns. But it’s 2018 and I’m kinda tired of that being the MO for male characters, especially manliness for the sake of manliness, like that 50s stoic, silent masculinity. In short, I’m really tired of 'traditional' masculinity, especially when it’s idolized and unquestioned. Which leads me to First Man, the new
Essays, Not Rants! 151: Keeping Pace I rant write a lot about genres and mediums. Discussing what’s considered art, or why science fiction is important. As I’ve said, a lot stories get dismissed simply because they take place in space or in the pages of a comic book. Which is a bummer. Especially considering the novel used to be held up as a lesser form. See, poetry used to be seen as being superior to the novel. Allen Tate, critic and generally important writer, thought that it was until
One of the (many) things I like about Gallatin is that since I get to design my curriculum much of my classes are seminars. This means, when I play my schedule right, I've got a lot less lecturing and a lot more discussion...ing. Which makes literature a lot more fun. Now, for pulpier stuff like Ender's Game, BioShock, or When Harry Met Sally (all stuff I've read/played/watched for a class), it means we get to look closely at what's, frankly, entertainment. But what surprises me is how much
Essays, Not Rants! 098: The (Lego) Hero’s Journey, Part One I had the pleasure of attending an advance screening of The LEGO Movie on Thursday at my university. Now, you have to realize, I’ve been into Legos as long as I can remember, have a couple models on my desk, and have been making Lego movies in one form or another since I was ten. In a nutshell: The LEGO Movie is fantastic. It’s beautifully animated, superbly cast, downright hilarious, and has a great plot. Now, the plot’s not anythi
Essays, Not Rants! 153: Control in The Avengers I’m working on an essay for school this weekend (seriously, when aren’t I?), and once again I find myself needing to practice analysis and stuff. And because this is me, I’m doing it about something fun. Manipulation and control of people play big roles in The Avengers. Loki’s staff gives him the ability to outright control minds, the bloodied Captain America cards are Nick Fury’s subtler means to get the Avengers to team up. A lot of the film’
Essays, Not Rants! 263: This Is You In This Story There’s this thing with good stories where you have this gut response of "I wanna do that!" Video games thrive on immersion, by letting you enact what these characters do; meanwhile movies, tv, books, comics, etc let you vicariously experience events. But what if you do get to be that character? Metal Gears Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Star Wars: The Force Awakens both explore that, by making the protagonist of each story very much a surrogat
As a massive fan of Hot Rod, when I heard NYU had a free/early screening of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping I knew I had to go. It is exactly what it needed to be. And it's a satire/parody that manages to keep its schtick up throughout, which is downright impressive. Not as good as Hot Rod, but then, Hot Rod's phenomenal.
Essays, Not Rants! 352: 2018 In Review 2018 came and, as years are wont to do, went. Stuff happened, I wrote blog posts; you know the drill. It’s time to look back on the year and stop writing this silly excuse for a preamble. Five Most Popular/Viewed Posts #5: On Crazy Rich Asians As someone who’s spent a good deal of his life in Singapore, it stands to reason that seeing a big movie about Singapore would be a bit of a deal. Crazy Rich Asians is that movie and it’s one that I have a lot
Essays, Not Rants 063: Heroic Motivation I'm gonna do something a little different this week. A few weeks ago I wrote a post as a sounding board for a Research Paper I had to write for a class. Now I figured "hey, why don't I post that research paper?" So I am. Its much longer than a usual post (nearly 5 times as long), but I feel like it's one of the best things I've written. So here it is, in all its A-, MLA-ish glory: “Heroes. There’s no such thing.” So says Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin in I
Essays, Not Rants 145: 2014 in Review 2014 is a few days from being over. So once again it’s time to go through my rants essays from this year and pick out the special ones. All statistics are based on essaysnotrants.net, since, y'know, I don't wanna count through the views on BZP. Five Most Popular/Viewed Posts #5: Relationship Advice from Scott Pilgrim The thing about Edgar Wright movies is that they work on so many levels. I was… off put the first time I watched Scott Pilgrim vs The Wor
Essays, Not Rants! 092: In Defense of Escapist Fiction A term that I see thrown around a lot regarding my preferred fictions is “escapist fiction.” You might have seen it before; films like The Avengers and Pacific Rim are just escapist fantasies, especially when compared to ‘real cinema.’ Or video games are just ways to live out a fantasy and science fiction a way to avoid problems and reality. It’s an interesting criticism, to say the least, one that sometimes culminates in me giving up an
