Essays, Not Rants! 267: Normalizing The Different It’s easy to dislike folks you don’t know. They’re different. They look weird. You have no horse in their race. They’re those people. The Unknowable Other. But it’s hard to keep up this mindset, that of the Them, the Other, after you’ve met said other. When you take the time to recognize them as a person, put a face to that Other, it’s much harder to not like them. Suddenly, they become an Us, rather than Them. Meeting people, however, is h
Spoilers, obviously, for last night's episode. It's more of me thinking about this tv show! The overall pacing of the show isn't slow, it's just off. Almost like it's meant to be bingewatched.
Loglines are the frickin' worst. "Hey, let's distill your concept down into one sentence!" But then, on the other hand, they do force you to distill your concept into one sentence.
Essays, Not Rants! 052: One Year Holy ow. This is my fifty-second post. That means I’ve been keeping up this blog for one year. One post a week for a whole year. Dang. I’m actually quite impressed I’ve managed to keep this up. My last attempt at a weekly blog wound up becoming bi-weekly, then monthly, then wheneverly. The fact that I’ve been keeping Essays, Not Rants! going for the past year with weekly posts of at 600-800ish words makes me want to give myself a self-five. Which I’ve done.
Alright, I did have a group of quotes and anecdotes about my dad for this (like how he perks up if you play the theme to Battle City, or how he kicks all kinds of butt at Pac-Man) but I figured the following information was proof enough that my dad is cooler than yours (and I'm not even gonna get into the whole 30+ years of traveling the world thing): My Dad will casually quote Abed (off of Community) in the middle of conversations. Dang straight.
So there's a yearlong class at NYU Tisch where you make movies. But unlike other classes, only half the class's projects will be greenlit. You spend the Fall working on preproduction, refining your script, and preparing a pitch. I'm the first non-Film Major to be in this class with the chance to compete for the greenlight. I pitch today. Here we go.
Essays, Not Rants! 293: Violence in Video Games The first trailer for The Last of Us Part II is haunting in its tranquility. We’re treated to shots of the desolated post-apocalyptic world where nature’s reclaimed a neighborhood. Inside a house, Ellie strums a guitar, singing "Through The Valley," a take Psalm 23. Recently killed bodies lie around the house and Ellie herself is splattered with blood. Joel confronts her at the end, asking if she still wants to go through with it. Ellie’s answer?
Essays, Not Rants! 353: The Joy of Exploring I continue to be endlessly fascinated by Breath of The Wild’s open world. Since the last time I talked about the game I’ve taken on one more Divine Beast, but I still spend so much of my time exploring Hyrule and trying to find everything. Which of course makes me wonder why I find this wandering so satisfying. I have a completionist streak in me, a part of me that wants to finish everything. Get all the dang feathers in Assassin’s Creed II, unloc
Essays, Not Rants! 280: Trusting The Story I was initially hesitant to watch Dunkirk, given that it seemed like Christopher Nolan being as Nolan-y as possible. Which, after The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar, wasn't terribly enticing. The Dark Knight Rises was long on ideas and short on smooth implementation. Interstellar too had big ideas but lacked the characterization they needed to land. Dunkirk seemed like it could be more of the same: Nolan being self-indulgent to the point of breaki
Essays, Not Rants! 233: To Tell The Truth How do you tell the truth? Saying “Alice and Bob broke up” may be what happened, but is it the truth of it all? Breakups are messy business; did Alice break up with Bob or Bob break up with Alice? Did Bob break up with Alice for Charlie? Suddenly there’s a narrative attached to the happening, which in turn colors our perception of what happened. It may be less accurate, but it could be closer to the truth. Maybe the truth is Bob feels like his heart’s
Essays, Not Rants! 005: You Are Noble Six In my last entry I (somewhat) briefly touched on the notion of video game immersion and storytelling. I said that the biggest advantage of telling a story through a video game was that the player would gain investment in the story due to having that “hey, I’m the hero!” moment. I wanna elaborate on that, explain just how some games do it - and how they’re so much better for it. Mass Effect is an easy go-to example. Right off the bat you’re asked to g
Essays, Not Rants! 355: War Games But Without The War I’m playing Mass Effect: Andromeda again, trying to polish off my second playthrough and nab that elusive Platinum trophy. With the sheen of "Oooh, it’s new" worn off, the game is decidedly a buggy mess, UI popups stay on screen long after they should have disappeared and I’ve spent an entire cutscene viewing my character as a party member blocked the camera (after we walked through a door whose opening animation didn’t happen). It’s a bu
This happened a couple days ago, but didn't post about it 'til now. The Conduits got into a festival, the Urban Action Showcase Expo. Meant I got to go to the launch gala. Also meant it got screened at the AMC in Times Square. Pretty sure this means I've peaked.
Essays, Not Rants! 134: Financial Teamwork One of my favorite things about the internet is the democratization of media. Anyone can do anything and put it out there for a wide audience. Where once upon a time either no one would see it, now you can put it on YouTube and spread it around. There’s not just an audience, there’s a mean to one. Recently, it’s also meant the ability to do bigger projects. This is crowdfunding, where a project is funding by a, er, crowd. Because hey, if there are a
Essays, Not Rants! 356: Colonialism… IN SPACE! While replaying Mass Effect: Andromeda I’m struck by one particular element of its central narrative: Colonialism. The game’s story sees a bunch of pioneers from the Milky Way, the Andromeda Initiative, arriving in the Andromeda Galaxy, ready to explore and set up a new life and all that. Turns out, their chosen chunk of Andromeda — the Heleus Cluster — is already inhabited, by the native angara and the invading kett. If the Initiative is to set u
Essays, Not Rants! 062: Arrested Protagonists Pain and Gain is a movie with villain protagonists. Not like Dr. Horrible, more if a couple of the thugs from Taken had a movie about them. This creates a whole host of problems for the film. We shouldn’t like the three main characters, they’re based on real life people guilty of torture, theft, and murder who wind up in jail. The paradox is that we shouldn’t like them but we still need to be invested in the show. For better or worse (mostly worse)
Essays, Not Rants! 357: Thirteen Or So Years Later I think it was my cousin who turned me in to Kingdom Hearts, years ago, via a ROM of Chain of Memories. It was a novel game, mixing as it did Disney worlds with a Final Fantasy mentality. I played the original PS2 game later and shortly after rented the third game, Kingdom Hearts II from Blockbuster (remember those?) and subsequently bought it. This was all back around the summer of 2006. This past Tuesday, the tenth non-remake game in the
Essays, Not Rants! 358: KH3: GOTY 2008ish As I continue to play Kingdom Hearts III while balancing all these newfound adult responsibilities that have sprung up since Kingdom Hearts II came out thirteen years ago, I’m struck over and over again by how much of a flashback the game is. Not just in the way that it makes me feel like a teenager again, but in how it embodies a game design ethos that’s been eschewed by a more contemporary zeitgeist. For example: Invisible walls. Virtual game spa
I'm tired. It's been a long day (woke up at 4 in Atlanta, hopped on a plane, started work at 1, got home past 10) and there's some serious scthuff going down. Todays' entry is rambling and a little more charged than I'd like for BZP. You can read it on Essays, Not Rants' website if you're so inclined. In any case, hug someone. Love somebody. There's more to this world than hate.
Essays, Not Rants! 132: Yet To Do it Again I’ve only played The Last of Us once. Well, only played it through all the way once. I started a New Game+ about a year ago, but still haven’t finished it. It’s odd, I know, considering how much I write about it (plus two final papers and counting). Oh, I play the multiplayer every now and then and I do look up cutscenes for reference, I just haven’t played it through again. Don’t get me wrong, I want to; it’s just a big commitment. Not time-wise (t
Essays, Not Rants! 155: Twisted Echos I’ve actually got a bunch of half-written posts I wanna post. Stuff on Birdman and the Oscars, or one on the Parks and Rec finale. However something came out, and, well, I can’t help myself. I’m talking about the new Age of Ultron
. There’s a lot to nerd out about. You’ve got the Vision teaser at the end, all the hints of the Avengers falling apart, Ultron being deliciously evil, and the glorious shot of the Avengers soaring into battle. I’m getting e
Essays, Not Rants! 202: There’s Gotta Be A Change! A big part of movies is the protagonist’s arc. As in they begin in one place, and end in another; they change. Tony Stark learns to take responsibility for his actions. Rey chooses to embrace her destiny. Duncan gets his own back in The Way Way Back. Change is a vital part of a story. But I’ve been thinking about The Iron Giant a bunch recently (because reasons) and something’s been nagging at my mind: Hogarth doesn’t change all that much. H
