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! 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! 009: Doth Mother Know You Weareth Her Drapes? Yes, another entry about The Avengers. I’m fully aware it came out two weeks ago and I should probably stop going to watch it every so often, but, well, no. The movie is, simply put, great. It sets a new standard for comic book/superhero movies and, more than that, proves that a movie of this nature can be of the same caliber and quality of those dainty arthouse dramas. ‘cause yes, the script is exceptional, acting top notch, and
It seemed liked the logical thing to do (especially in light of a recent online purchase): Apologies for the overexposed picture, I snapped it with my phone and didn't feel like setting up lights. I think I'm gonna build a truck tomorrow...
I'm gonna be upfront with all of you: my mom is way cooler than yours. I'm not going to detail history (years in India, on a ship, etc) or the fact that she's someone I can have long Skype calls with. Nah, instead I'm gonna do a quote compilation. I'm fully aware this puts me in a fairly dorkish category. But honestly, I don't mind. =P
Essays, Not Rants! 008: The Artificial Family I grew up on a ship. Well, not really grew up exactly, more spent four very key years of my youth onboard a ship. It’s a long story. The thing about living on a ship, though, was that with only two hundred people on board it was a small community. Smaller still were the number of kids on board. I’m not kidding when I say there were a handful. Out of necessity we became more of a family than a group of friends. Life’s changed and gone on, but even t
As promised, here are a few more shots from the midnight showing. Looking important Pepper helping adjust the repulsor arm Just plain cool So hard to resist
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
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
A movie I really wanted to see came out. Sadly, it wasn't showing in Florence. naturally, I figured I'd make the hundred mile trip to see it in Charlotte. Totally worth it. I really liked Blue Like Jazz. If/when I start making movies, and if I ever make a film that can remotely be titled 'Christiany', I intend it to be in the vein of that movie. That is it was a film about faith that focused more on characters and the plot then sermonizing. And it was funny. Real funny. And had a lot of heart.
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
Part Two of TMD's Fourth Annual Movie Awards Yesterday I posted the big movie list. Today's the Awards. As usual we have my rather unusual categories. Now, due to the tardiness of my writing and posting this, I've kinda forgotten a lot of the movies I shortlisted in my head so sometimes I'll just have the winner rather than a bunch of nominees too. —————————— Worst Movie Basically, what sucks. These movies are not so-bad-they're-good, but are so-bad-they're-worse. Nominees: I Am Number Fou
Hey everyone! For the record, I know I am way overdue. I blame this on a mix of procrastination, waiting for movies to come out in Singapore, then waiting for movies to come out on Netflix, then just more procrastionating. In any case, Welcome To TMD's Fourth Annual Movie Awards Part One As usual I'm listing every movie I saw this year. You get the idea. Naturally these are all subjective and it has been a while since I've seen some of them. Enough of an opening, here it is: Legend: º
Essays, Not Rants! 004: The Magnitude of Medium As I hope you've noticed over my past few entries, I like stories. I read them, I watch them, I play them, I, um, listen? to them. In any case, here's something I've noticed: the medium of a story is, in the hands of a deft writer/creator, an incredibly powerful tool. Let's start with books. Everyone's (hopefully) read a book or two dozen. If not, then, well, I'm not sure what to say to you. Anyway. Books tend to be long affairs. Within them yo
Essays, Not Rants! 003: Why Science Fiction Is Not A Genre Walk into any book store and you’ll find them sorted into categories. You’ve got your Fiction, Children’s, Military History, Home and Garden, Romance, Young Adult, the odd shelf titled ‘Young Adult Paranormal Romance’, and, of course, Science Fiction and Fantasy. It’s fairly obvious where books go, works of Fiction goes in fiction, kids’ books go in Children’s, non-fiction goes with its topic, and so on. Now, a work of fiction, whe
In case the gif in the entry below isn't enough, here's a shot of the arm itself. (Not staged, I actually have to unscrew it to get it off. Sadly I have no team of robots to assist.)
