Essays, Not Rants! 075: 35mm Originally posted August 24th 2013 Two things were announced yesterday: Ben Affleck will be the new Batman and Dan Mindel will be the Director of Photographer for Star Wars VII. This one is about the second one. The announcement of Dan Mindel was accompanied with the information that the movie would be shot on 35mm. That is: film. Alright: history lesson. Attack of the Clones was known for being one of the first films shot entirely on digital. It was different, a
Essays, Not Rants! 354: Ahistoricism I went into The Favourite like I do with many movies: knowing very little and having seen maybe a part of a trailer. I knew it was a period piece (duh) and there was a Queen in it (also: duh). Anyway, after watching the movie I read up on it on Wikipedia and found, to my immense surprise, that it was somewhat based on actual historical fact. It makes sense enough that I thought this movie was fabricated wholesale: there’s a Queen in power, nobles are vying
Essays, Not Rants! 347: Mary Jane Watson One thing I love so much about Spider-Man is how so much of the narrative can be stripped down to its archetypes. Peter Parker is an unlucky kid who’s suddenly had this great power thrust upon him. Otto Octavius is a genius scientist doomed for tragedy. And Mary Jane Watson is the girl next door. A lot of the fun of the various incarnations of Spidey, be it different adaptations or reimaginings across the multiverse (see: Spider-Punk or Spider-Ham), i
Essays, Not Rants! 007: Perilous Tension Tension tends to drive a story forward. Well, tension and characters. But this is about tension (which relates to characters). Anyway, one source of tension, especially in movies that can be classified as action and adventure, is peril. Everybody loves peril. We see our characters and we ask ourselves “dude, what happens next?” And that, dear reader, is an excellent question. See, depending on your personal literary philosophy it’s wondering either
So last week I got a location (friend of mine's apartment) and we're gonna shoot there. So that's settled and that's awesome because now I have a place to make my movie. Great. Most of my preproduction paperwork is squared away, so that means I just have to wait for approval from NYU so I can shoot on the 18th/19th (holy frappe that's in two weeks). I also got to fill out my pick sheet - I'm renting a DOLLY. This is exciting. Crew is also coming together. I've got a meeting with the art depa
So, as part of being at Gallatin, I've gotta put together a big list of books for my Senior year. Basically, these say what I've studied and all. I also have to write a 8ish page paper on what I've been doing my college career so I can have a two hour talk with three faculty members about it. Anyway, I finished the paper (my rationale) and finalized my booklist. This is that booklist in all its glory:
It's 1:30am and I have my day job in the morning, but I'm writing right now (and just finished another round of bourbon with bitters) and feel like rambling. This weekend we wrapped production on THE INVINCIBLE OSIRIS JACKSON, a webseries about a gay, black nerd looking for love in all the wrong places. A webseries that I was hired to direct. As in direct a production for money. I got paid to direct. I emphasize these words because this is something I've wanted for years, heck, it's ba
Essays, Not Rants! 016: Thrilling Heroics Every boy has his favorite superhero. Doesn’t matter if they’ve never read a comic; pop cultural osmosis will take care of that. Growing up, my favorites were Batman and Iron Man. My brother was a Spider-Man fan. I’ve got a buddy who loved Green Lantern and another who liked Robin. But why is it that we love heroes (super or not)? Whether they’re named Tony Stark, Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, Buffy Summers, or Atticus Finch, we have our heroes. But w
Essays, Not Rants 041: 2012 in Review That’s right people, I’m doing it again. Once again instead of a usual post I’m going to look through some of the posts from this year and link ‘em. Because it’s something appropriate to do at year’s end and not because a buddy of mine and I watched two movies in two separate cinemas and last night and I’m working today. Five Most Popular/Viewed Posts #5: Two More Hours On occasion my blog posts are, there I say it, topical. This usually happens duri
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
I stayed up 'till 2am Tuesday night finishing the game, stayed up another two hours mulling it over, and two days later I'm still processing the game. Here's some initial thoughts I scribbled out: It's just a very different video game. For starters, it's not exactly a terribly 'fun' game. Not that it's not good or a great play, but that it's like Zero Dark Thirty, an incredibly well put together thing that's not easy to watch. Look at the Infected, the zombie-like creatures. Y'know what a co
Essays, Not Rants! 309: Reframing a Narrative So it’s been some time (a week-ish) since Black Panther came out and the mental nerding out has sufficiently subsided that I can have some actual Rational Thoughts about the movie beyond "wow it’s so cool and Okoye is everything." And, go figure, it’s coming down to a lotta thoughts about representation. And how representation is happening. But first, a detour to Star Wars. My favorite movie series seems to have enacted a moratorium on white gu
Essays, Not Rants! 371: Where’s My History Lesson? The Assassin’s Creed games might be my ultimate guilty pleasure of a video game. Some of them are really good (II and Brotherhood), some… less so (the original and, honestly, III). Then there’s one like Black Flag which has a really cool central mechanic (ships!) but really accentuates the worst parts of the series (missions where you have to follow someone and then not be seen… and failing makes you have to slowly walk with the followee agai
Starting Monday I'll be starting work at the Just Salad on 8th St. I think they sell salad. On the one hand, this might mean so long to bunches of free time and stuff that that entails (like Daily Show trips, long late night conversations, too many video games, Cookies and Coloring Club). But then this means money. Which means I can buy stuff. Like the Iron Man 3 sets, ME3 DLC, a black tie, alcohol, movie tickets, gloves, and so on. Heck, I may be able to eat out now and then. But yeah.
Y'know that thing where you're offered everything you wanted? Something you've wanted for a long long time that embodies just about all you hoped for? Know what I mean? But you know you can't take it? That as much as you wish you could you can't? That you have to do the right thing and say no? And step back out alone, without what you could have had? And even though you did the right thing you feel like #### and it haunts you? So you talk it out, you pray it out, you write it out, you get
Essays, Not Rants! 364: Apex Teamwork Ever since my brother got himself a PS4 I’ve been paying a bit more attention to online games. Sure, I play my share of online, games like Battlefront and Destiny are a great way to relax while watching The Daily Show, but an online multiplayer component has never been a big draw. Now that my brother and I can play online together, I’m ever on the lookout for a game where we can throw down together. Over the past couple of years, Battle Royale games have
Essays, Not Rants! 106: About That Noah Movie So. Noah. That new Darren Aronofsky movie. Let’s talk about it. It’s an adaption, obviously. And it hits all the main beats of the biblical narrative. Noah’s told to build an ark, he builds an ark, animals, dove with the olive branch, landfall, the wine incident we don’t talk about at church, and the rainbow. That’s all there. What Aronofsky and crew do is build on that, and for good reason. The account in the Bible is short and not terribly ci
