Essays, Not Rants! 049: Quality and the Oscars So it’s Oscar time. Which means award times. And, well, I’m mildly disappointed with some of the nominations. I find that movies, video games, and so on can’t be judged subjectively or comparatively. Least not on a flat scale of quality+writing+cinematography+explosions. Here’s how I judge stuff: did it accomplish what it set out to do, and did it do it well? It’s an odd scale, yeah, but it’s one that works. Like Lincoln, the movie that snatched
Essays, Not Rants! 006: Why The Avengers Will Be Awesome Note: I know I wrote something like this a few weeks ago. Consider this a more in depth take on that. In a little less than a week, a movie I’ve been waiting a long time for will finally be released. No, not The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (though that looks like fun), but The Avengers. Understand, I’ve been waiting for this movie since the stinger attached to Iron Man four years ago. I saw each of the ‘prior’ movies (except The Incredi
Essays, Not Rants! 019: Sacrifice There’s this trope in fiction called the Heroic Sacrifice. The idea is that a character gives himself up so another can live or succeed. When done right it can be an incredibly powerful writing tool. Doesn’t have to be sacrificing your own life, though. At the end of The Dark Knight, Batman has just saved Commissioner Gordon’s son and the fallen Harvey Dent has tumbled to his death. There is blood on Dent’s hands; the man who came close to saving Gotham has
Essays, Not Rants! 010: On A High Note There’s this quote I read once but for the life of me cannot find (no, not even on the legendary internet). Well, starting an essay with a quote is pretty trite and I think I’ve averted that, so there. Anyway, CS Lewis was once asked why he chose to end The Chronicles of Narnia after ‘only’ seven books. He essentially said that it was better to end it when people wanted more than to end it when people were tired of it. Y’know, end on a high note (title
Essays, Not Rants! 077: Commercial and Literary Originally posted September 7th 2013 There’s an interesting divide that tends to come up when discussing literature of any sort in an academic setting. That is, the divide between the commercial and the literary. What’s this mean exactly? Apparently when it comes to fiction and stuff there’s the stuff for ‘the masses’ and then the stuff that’s more for only people who would really understand it. It’s the difference between Beasts of the Souther
Essays, Not Rants! 080: Let's Talk About Agents of SHIELD Originally posted September 28th 2013 Did you watch it this week? Because you really should have. See, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (henceforth referred to without the periods), is a spin-off of a movie. A movie series, mind you. And it doesn’t focus any of the protagonists from said movie series. The deck is kinda stacked against it. With all that it’d be easy for the show to wallow as just something to sorta tide us over while we wait for
Essays, Not Rants! 365: Adaptational Change There’s a delightful twist late in Captain Marvel that adds a nice layer of added depth to the narrative. It’s one that I didn’t see coming, but a friend who’s less familiar with the comics thought it was well telegraphed. The reason I didn’t expect it is arguably because of how used I am to the way things are in the Marvel comics. Turning things on its head is a concept so wild as to be unthinkable, and it’s something that the movie can uniquely do
Essays, Not Rants! 045: Broken Pieces I saw Silver Linings Playbook the other day and loved it (it is currently my favorite of this year’s Oscar nominations). For many reasons, really. Like the brilliantly intelligent script that doesn’t talk down to its audience, some great cinematography, stellar acting and so on. But what really got me was how the protagonists were just so broken. No, not their lives; they were broken. There’s a difference. Let’s take Uncharted. Nathan Drake is not a brok
C'mon ya'll! PM me your questions for the powercast! About anything! New York, South Carolina, Singapore, the ship, heart disease, the Singapore military, BZP, Lego, Bionicle! C'mon people!
Essays, Not Rants 041: Cortana, Chloe, and Changing Trends Cortana has always been my favorite character from the Halo games (after whom comes Buck [‘cuz he’s Nathan Filion] and Noble Six [‘cuz he’s me]). Ever since she told Guilty Spark to sod off in the original game, I’ve been sold on that blueish AI. Oh yeah, shoulda mentioned that. Despite Cortana being depicted as a nakedish blue young woman, it was her character that won me over. She’s a sarcastic, forthright AI determined to help Ma
Essays, Not Rants! 051: Instant Tension: Just Add Guns Say three guys are discussing the proper pronunciation of the word milk. Then the argument heats up and they start yelling. Things are starting to get a little intense Now one of them pulls a gun on the others. Things just got real, man! Then the other guys pull out their guns! Just like that the tension in the story jumps through the roof and the argument about elocution is forgotten in favor of will these friends kill themselves over it.
Essays, Not Rants! 320: Between a Wookie and a Hard Place A recent trailer for Solo, that new Star Wars movie about, uh, Han Solo, ends with a bit of a cliffhanger. A (space) train hurtles along its tracks around a mountain as a battle rages atop it. It comes close to the cliff side and hanging out the train is none other then Chewbacca, and he is heading straight for an outcropping. The Wookie appears destined to certain doom as the trailer ends. The question of whether Chewie survives bec
Essays, Not Rants! 220: Clever Stupid Hot Rod is one of my favorite movies. I’ve got its poster framed in my living room, and it’a movie that I’ve analyzed on this blog for its presentation of Rod’s mustache as a symbol of self-actualization. It’s also not a movie you’d expect to be analyzed, seeing as Hot Rod is, well, incredibly stupid. It’s about a (bad) amateur stuntman who needs to raise enough money to save his stepfather’s life so he can beat the stuffing out of him (and earn his respec
Essays, Not Rants! 250: 2016 In Review Year’s over, so this means I’m looking at the rants essays from this past year. Here we go! Five Most Popular/Viewed Posts #5: *general internet frustrations* Mockingbird became my favorite comic this year for a variety of reasons (feminist, funny, fantastic). But when the final issue was published people got mad. This is about that and why we can’t have nice things, and why Mockingbird and the fallout remain important in the larger dialogue of fict
Essays, Not Rants! 015: Abed, I Know What We're Gonna Do Today! My favorite show this past season aired on Thursdays at 8pm on NBC. This was, of course, Community. It also happens to be one of my favorite shows of all time (up there with Firefly, Lost, and Chuck). It’s smart, excellently written, and consistently hilarious. I’m not sure when my favorite cartoon airs. I know it’s on Disney Channel, but I just watch it on Netflix. Phineas and Ferb, my favorite cartoon, is smart, excellently writ
Essays, Not Rants! 187: The Right Hook So I’m using this blog to spitball ideas for a paper. And no, it’s not on boxing. What gets us hooked on a tv show? As in, what is it that makes you keep coming back? What was it about the shows we’re discussing in class — Sherlock, Mr. Robot, Firefly, and Daredevil — that made them stick (or not?). Sherlock is an interesting case. Each episode nears the length of a feature length film, making it an odd hybrid of film and television. But the show hook
Essays, Not Rants! 184: Now For Something Old I’m busy this weekend. I’m writing a rationale, essentially a jumbo-sized one of these blog posts about everything I’ve been studying since coming to college to prove that my studies have had a point (which is, currently, Narrative (Re)Construction). As I’m focusing an inane amount of brain power into writing this paper, I don’t have time for a proper post this week. So let’s go back to before Essays, Not Rants! and find something old. The year
Essays, Not Rants! 298: The Ephemeral and The Sublime Over the years, Hideo Kojima has, because of his Metal Gear Solid games, become one of my favorite video game designers. He's also certifiably bonkers, mixing in discussions of American militarism-as-neo-colonialism in a game where you fight giant mechs alongside a mostly naked sniper who can't speak because of a parasite that uses language to spread (and thus serves as a vehicle for Kojima to discuss how English becoming the global lingua
Essays, Not Rants! 011: What Makes A Good Sequel Sometimes, it feels like everything’s a sequel. Last year we got no less than twenty-eight sequels. In one year. Heck, all but one of 2011‘s top ten blockbusters (that one is Smurfs, but we won’t talk about that) were sequels. Well, this veritable deluge of sequels wouldn’t be that bad if it weren’t for the fact that so many sequels flat out suck. The mentality behind so many sequels seems to be something like “hey, that worked so well the fir
Essays, Not Rants! 175: In Search of Story I have spent entirely too much of my life playing The Sims. Seriously, since I was first sent a copy of the game by my cousin in 2002 I’ve logged endless hours in the original game and its sequels. I’ve bought expansion packs and borrowed them from friends. What I’m saying is I’ve played a lotta Sims. Now, The Sims is one of those games that there are many ways to play. Personally, I got through my burning/starving/drowning phase relatively quickl
So I moved. Was gonna move before the fire, but the fire kinda expedited the actual moving. Already had a place. Was mostly packed. So that went smooth. New place. Brother and I moved in with my drinking buddy – she and I get along grand even when we aren't drinking. We're in Queens now. New neighborhood, new haunts. Getting the lay of the land, changing my address. Got promoted to full-time at the LEGO Store. Pilot program we're a part of. I get benefits now – health insurance. Also got Emp
Essays, Not Rants 041: 2012 in Review It’s 2013. Dang. So instead of a usual post I’m going to look through some of the posts from the prior year! I’m also supposed to be packing and more or less forgot about this week’s post and don’t have time to write one due to errands and packing. Oops. But hey! Oh yeah, all these stats are based on the actual Essays, Not Rants! blog and not the stats of the posts mirrored here. I still have to pack, let me be lazy. Four Most Popular/Viewed Posts
