Essays, Not Rants! 306: Rey and Luke I liked a lot of things about the The Force Awakens, but easily my favorite addition was Rey, who is undeniably the best. Sure, she's basically Luke Skywalker in the original, except she's someone who's grown up with those same stories and now gets to live them out. It's cool, and she gets a lightsaber and that's awesome. But The Last Jedi doesn't give Rey some grand adventure. Rey doesn't actually do a whole lot over the course of the film. While Poe’s
Man, I want some Legos. And I have a measure of disposable income I could use to by some. And I can probably rearrange some of the shelves in my apartment to accommodate the space. And I'm getting a big paycheck this Friday where I'll get a couple months worth of pay at once. And now that summer's over my electricity bill has gone down. And, y'know, that Palace Cinema looks downright dope. Or that Falcon. Or that new AT-AT. And/or the Hulkbuster. And the set with Miles Morales.
My apologies for not updating this more regularly. You really think I would given the whole being in Spain and Morocco thing. But anyway. We spent a day in Cordoba, two nights in Grenada (the Spanish city, not the Carribean island [yes, I have to make this distinction]), then drove to Tarifa and took a ferry to Tangiers where we've been since. I suppose it's time for another list? Have I mentioned how awesome it is to have your school pay for your wine and beer? I may or may not have been p
Essays, Not Rants! 139: Representation, Big Hero 6, and Me I saw Big Hero 6 last Saturday, a couple days after Interstellar. They’re very different movies, different beasts. I’m not sure yet which one I like more, but there’s one thing that makes Big Hero 6very special. But first let’s talk about me. I’m one of those weird people who can claim two races. No, not the mix of mayonnaise and sour cream that is the 1/4 Irish, 1/4 German, 1/8 Polish, 1/3 English, 1/24 Swedish mixes, I’m Asian an
Essays, Not Rants! 094: Relationship Advice from Scott Pilgrim Scott Pilgrim vs The World is one of my favorite movies. There’s the video game-y nature of it; a world that’s realistically unrealistic where fights look like Street Fighter and people explode into coins. With that, Edgar Wright and team put a great deal of love into making it; sound effects are borrowed everywhere from Legend of Zelda to Seinfeld. It’s a great movie. For those of you who haven’t seen it (or fall outside its fai
Essays, Not Rants! 224: Regarding Movies About Two Superheroes Fighting Each Other If you were to put 2016’s blockbusters in a museum, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War ought to be displayed next to each other. They’re the sort of movies that, when looked at together, take on a whole new dimension. Because one is far more successful than the other. To understand why Civil War succeeds, you don’t have to look much better than at how BvS fails. Both movies have
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! 035: Red Pill So y’know how there’ll be this story but there’s this one break from reality? The one thing that makes this world just a little different from the normal one? It’s pretty much the foundation of the story; the one pill that the audience has to swallow to make the whole story digestible. If we can believe that ‘reality’ is really just a virtual construct and the real real world is a dystopian post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by machines, The Matrix makes perfe
So the girlfriend and I recently started watching Star Wars Rebels. And holy cyprinidae it is so good. We're only five-or-so episodes into Season Two (she's studying for Major Graduate Physics Exams), but dang. I'm surprised by how much I unapologetically enjoy this show. Also: Chopper is wonderful.
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! 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! 256: Pushing Plausibility Comic books are weird. Especially superhero comics, what with alternate realities, time travel, dying but not really dying, planet-eating-monsters-turned-life-bringers, and telepathic cosmonaut dogs. Like I said, weird. Comic book movies, however, are typically more tame. Let’s go back a decade or so; the major blockbusters based on properties from the big two, Marvel and The House That Batman Built (DC), had been, mostly, normal-ish. We had Batma
Still wondering about the Kickstarter? This is the shots we've been getting. Now, keep in mind, this is all before color correction, vfx, or anything done in post. Heck, we've still three more days of shooting.
Essays, Not Rants! 067: Protagonists, Goals, and Conviction Let’s talk about the characters in The Last of Us. Because I still want to talk about that game. For the sake of direction, we’ll focus on Joel and Ellie, because they’re the protagonists (and arguably each other’s antagonist) and you spend nearly eighteen hours with them. I’m going to try to keep this mostly spoiler-free, but since this’ll be discussing characters and arcs and development, be warned of mentions and implications and
Essays, Not Rants! 036: Protagonists And Such Call him the main character, the lead, the hero, the player character; most every good story has a protagonist. He (or she) is the person we follow. Either because they provide the viewpoint and let us into the world or because they’re out on a grand quest. A lot of stories rise and fall based on the protagonist (or lack thereof). The lack of a protagonist in The Phantom Menace is one of its shortcomings. Obi-Wan would make a great one, only he w
Essays, Not Rants! 090: Projection and Empathy Every now and then I repurpose this blog to spitball various ideas for papers I have to write. These are usually not terribly coherent. I’m doing it again. For my class on Melodrama (yes, it’s a thing) I want to write about video games, because I can. Particularly Mass Effect 3 and The Last of Us and the different ways each game immerses the player to build drama. In Mass Effect 3 you are Commander Shepard. You choose your first name, you choo
