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Ta-metru_defender

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Blog Entries posted by Ta-metru_defender

  1. Ta-metru_defender

    Budgeting Apps

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    Warning: Grown Up Rant/Tirade/Ramble Approaching
     
    I've been keeping a budget via spreadsheet for the last couple years. A basic one where I've money set aside for various categories (food, transport, entertainment, misc, alcohol, bills), note down how much I get in paychecks and put in savings (then categorize what I'm saving up for).
     
    Now, I'm in the market for a good app to do it for me, because I can be lazy with this budget thing. And there are a lot of great budget apps out there, but they're weird. Like some work great, but don't have a spot for you to categorize your spending. Or doesn't have a spot for savings (or categorized savings).
     
    I mean, I suppose I could make it work if I made savings into an expense... But I wanna track over weeks.
     
    Most frustrating thing is, a lot of these expect you to have some sort of stable salary. Which, y'know, I get paid hourly and find gigs where I can. I don't have one of those. So those don't work so well for me.
     
    Pending I find anything, back to the spreadsheets it is. Gotta save up for those Rogue One Legos somehow.
     
     
    tl;dr: Josh finds budgeting apps woefully inadequate.
  2. Ta-metru_defender

    Picture Lock

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    After a busy summer doing almost anything but (and a madly busy second-half of a spring semester), I've picture locked on The Conduits. Now it's off to music and sound and color correction and vfx for all that fun stuff.
     
    Can't wait until it's done.
     
     



  3. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 232: Visible Diversity
     
    So I recently started Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Finally, I should say; you’d think with a Marc Webb directed pilot I’d have watched it sooner. Anyway, once you get past the somewhat off-putting title (which, as the theme song says, is a sexist term and the situation is a lot more nuanced than that), Crazy Ex is a lotta fun. It’s a musical equal parts cynical and idealistic set in a relatively mundane setting where no matter how outlandish it gets, the character relations stay heartfelt. It’s great.
     
    But that’s not what this post’s about.
     
    Look in the backgrounds of a scene in Crazy Ex or the backup singers and dancers in a musical number. It looks unlike a lot of what you usually see on tv, and not just because of the singing and dancing. Crazy Ex has made an effort to fill its background with people of all colors. Not just one person-of-color in the background, but a variety of folks who you don’t usually get to see on tv (or in media in general). I mean, c’mon! When was the last time you got to see an Asian guy as part of a musical number! Where he wasn’t the token background person of color? Since there’s, y’know, a few other non-white people populating the scene?
     
    Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has been remarkable at filling out its cast – both main and bit players! — with people who aren’t white. The person protagonist Rachel obsesses over is an Asian guy named Josh (*cough*). The Major Client she has to land for her law firm is black, some of the peopler competing in the guac competition at the Taco Festival are Latino. And the people at that Taco Festival also run the racial spectrum.
     
    Am I making a big deal about a small thing? Yes. Because it’s a small thing worth making a big deal about.
     
    It’s easy, all so easy to fill out a scene with a bunch of white people peppered with the occasional sprig of diversity. But what Crazy Ex does that’s so cool is take that diversity and ratchet it up several notches, and then make those sprigs of diversity visible. You don’t have to squint to find your background minority.
     
    Star Trek Beyond did something similar. Not only is the background crew of the Enterprise noticeably more diverse, but, once again, the featured people in the background aren’t all white. The crew members we see disappear into a cabin while making out are an Asian guy and a white woman (*cough*); the woman we follow as the bridge is evacuated is an Indian woman. Heck, the leader of the super high tech space station, Commodore Paris, is played by Shohreh Aghdashloo who was in The Expanse. She’s the person who tells Kirk, what to do, by the way; and that’s great.
     
    And this is the part where I have to mention Rogue One. Because, again, diversity! Heroes! Chinese actors! A Middle Eastern actor is the pilot! Diego Luna! Forest Whitaker! But! But but but! It’s also the small stuff in the background. The Rebel troops we see in the trailer are racially diverse (and the LEGO AT-ST set coming out features a black guy as the generic rebel trooper). Again, these are small details that give the world a fuller feel.
     
    And it’s friggin’ important. Because this is fiction, and fiction reflects reality, and reality is remarkably diverse. White-as-default isn’t gonna fly anymore. Yes, I have a personal investment in this because, growing up, I didn’t see a lot of heroes who looked like me. Over the years I’ve gotten used to turning on the tv or sitting down in a theatre and not expecting to see myself represented (or represented as anyone other than The Other). Yeah, I try and fix that in
    , even if it’s just a student film. 
    But.
     
    It’s changing.
     
    Star Trek Beyond firmly proved that Sulu wasn’t the only Asian on the Enterprise and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is inclusive as all-gets-out in who gets to be in its musical numbers and who gets to be multi-faceted people on tv. And Rogue One, well, I’ve already ranted about that.
     
    If this is the sign of fiction-to-come, I can’t wait.
  4. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 231: You Should Be Reading Mockingbird
     
    There’s a lot to like about the new Mockingbird ongoing title from Marvel. For starters, it’s the next step in a really spiffy new direction Marvel’s been taking with their comics lately: diversity. In the past year-or-so, Marvel’s really stepped up their game with who’s in their comics. You’ve got Asian characters headlining their own series (Totally Awesome Hulk, and the fantastic-and-severely-under-appreciated Silk), and Spider-Man and Captain America are black. Spider-Woman and Spider-Gwen have their own books, along with Black Widow, Squirrel Girl, and Moon Girl. Then there’s the new-mainstays of Captain Marvel and Ms Marvel… Point is, Marvel’s got a pretty diverse character lineup for their books.
     
    It also helps that that diversity extends behind the books too. Ms Marvel is written by G. Willow Wilson, herself a Muslim, and so is lent an extra couple layers of delightful texture. Ta-Nehisi Coates lends a special sense of identity not only to T’challa in Black Panther but to all of Wakanda, one that’s science-fictiony and fantastical, but doesn’t necessarily subscribe to a Western/white image of the future. It’s wonderfully different, and, in a word, dope. There are a few titles, Patsy Walker, AKA Hellcat! and Mockingbird being two, that have all-women creative teams working on them.
     
    Which brings me to Mockingbird.
     
    Like I said in the first sentence (before I got distracted by diversity), there’s a lot to like about the comic. First off, is the character of Mockingbird herself. The first issue is light on actual plot (rather, it tantalizes what’s to come) and instead focuses on setting up who exactly Bobbi Morse is. It helps that the comic is very much told from Bobbi’s point of view, with little boxes of narration peppering the action. From that, we’re afforded a window into Bobbi’s inner life and how she filters the world she sees through her identity. It doesn’t take long for us to get a handle on who she is: super-spy scientist who knows what she’s doing and has little patience for those who don’t.
     
    Also, her background as a scientist affects her decisions and thought processes. She isn’t just a by-the-way scientist, it’s part of who she is. This is actually something Mockingbird does really well: Bobbi’s various identities (woman, scientist, spy, Hawkeye’s ex-wife) are all worked intrinsically into her. Bobbi feels fully formed and fully herself, a rounded character with a shaded personality that can go different ways. Which is really cool, guys!
     
    That alone would make Mockingbird a perfectly enjoyable book, but it doesn’t stop there. As becomes steadily more and more obvious as the series progresses, Mockingbird had a decidedly feminist bent. Take issue two, which has Bobbi Morse going undercover in the London filterably named Club to rescue Lance Hunter. Now, this Club is the sorta place that necessitates a scantily-clad outfit to blend in. But, but but but, the art never ogles Bobbi, or makes her out to be anything except in a position of power, fishnets and spiked leather boots be darned. Lance, on the other hand, is distinctly made out to be both hopeless and an object of desire. Also: He’s wearing much less than she is. It’s this sort of wonderful subversion of what’s become accepted as normal in comic books that gives Mockingbird such a strong sense of voice and personality. That Bobbi-saving-a-male-hero is something of a trope for the book at this point (in #4 she rescues a swimsuit-clad Hawkeye) is icing on the cake.
     
    But! Mockingbird isn’t content to just subvert and usual and call it a day. It goes further. The third issue finds Bobbi acting as hostage negotiator to a sixth-grade girl with superpowers she doesn’t understand. It’s a neat little story in and of itself, but the conceit of scary superpowers is used as a cipher for not being understood as a girl growing up. Oh, it’s made perfectly clear within the text, what with Bobbi’s narration asking “How can we have a meaningful dialogue with adolescent girls when we live in a culture that still can’t talk about tampons?” and tv news tickers describing the powered girl as “hysterical” and an “attention-seeking tween.” Here’s a mainstream, Marvel comic book — a medium usually associated with young males — talking about and trying to understand what it’s like growing up as a girl. It’s delightful and validating in a way that you don’t usually see in comics. Or a lot of movies, for that matter.
     
    I really like comics in general (I had one on my thesis/rationale at college!), both for pulpy fun and for some plain good storytelling. But every now and then something like Mockingbird comes along, which not only tells a great story but says something as well — and merges the two together effortlessly. It’s a fantastic series and, without question, my favorite book Marvel’s putting out right now.
  5. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 230: Zombieland: A Treatise on Life in a Post-Consumer Society
     
    I mentioned it as a joke last week, but this week we’re going for it.
     
    I’m so sorry.
     
    Zombies have long been used as a means to comment on the perils of consumerism. Mindless hordes doing things without thinking for the few capable of independent thought to stand up against. Zombieland takes the conceit one step further, within the film self actualization is only possible in a world free of the shackles of traditional consumerism.
     
    Much of the conflict in Zombieland takes place in the ruins of grocery stores, downtown areas, and, climatically, a theme park. The main characters too exist outside of the established economy; Columbus and Tallahassee loot and rob cars in the post-apocalyptic wasteland (the titular Zombieland) and before the outbreak Wichita and Little Rock were con artists, stealing rather than working jobs. But it’s now that they’re no longer part of a consumerist society that they are able to really come in to their own.
     
    When Columbus and Tallahassee meet up with Wichita and Little Rock there is a great deal of distrust. Distrust that is primarily due to them fighting over guns and a car, of which there are not too many. Their strife is born of competition over limited resources — the backbone of a consumerist society. It’s because they’re holding on to one of the principle tenants of a pre-Zombieland world that they fight; as long as they live by the rules of consumerism they won’t be able to truly develop a friendship.
     
    If one of the central themes of Zombieland is that people need other people — it is after all a movie where survivors come to realize they’re stronger together than separate — then that true friendship is only possible when they no longer subscribe to traditional views of consumerist culture. This is made clear when they finally do become friends. It’s not when they’re fighting a horde of zombies together, this is far from a battle-forged friendship. Rather, they only truly bond when they utterly destroy a gift shop together. Unlike many of the other locations visited by the survivors, this gift shop is in immaculate condition. All the gaudy trinkets and shiny rocks are still on the shelves, nothing’s out of place, even after Tallahassee dispatches of the lone zombie in the shop.
     
    It’s in this place that Columbus first stands up to Tallahassee, a significant character moment as it shows him beginning to come into his own. Immediately after that character moment, however, he knocks something over by accident. Then another deliberately. The others join in and a montage of them destroying the stores contents ensues. It’s a blithely irreverent destruction of private property and also a rejection of the need for silly tchotchkes that have worth just because they’re supposed to. The act of destruction unites them and marks a shift for the characters bonding and sets them on the path to self-actualization.
    According to Zombieland, it is in this post-consumer landscape that real relationships can thrive. Where before Columbus only knew his neighbor by her apartment number, now he has people he trusts — and he learns Wichita’s real name too. Wichita and Little Rock put aside their grifting ways and Tallahassee finds space in his vengeful anti-zombie agenda to care for other people. All they needed was to be free of the consumerism.
     
    Writer’s Note:
    There! Did it! It’s a little half-baked and there are some ideas that could be explored more (in the climax Wichita and Little Rock are stranded in an amusement park ride, trapped by their want for the vestige of consumerism that is Pacific Playland; Tallahassee wants a Twinkie which he only gets after he’s learned to be content with other people and not need something mass-produced), but, hey, this was more for fun/to prove a point than anything.
     
    Also I’m so sick of the word ‘consumer.’
  6. Ta-metru_defender
    I mentioned in my last entry that I've been running a Star Wars: Edge of The Empire RPG with some friends over the summer. Which is great, 'cuz I love tabletop and I've got a good group. So I'm gonna be rambling about those games on here.
     
    Let's start with the players; the crew of the Flying Flask. Character creation was a lot of fun back in June.
     
    First up, we have Tengen'benwen'henfen, a Chiss Pilot/Commando who, uh, pilots the Flying Flask. Ten's ex-Imperial too and, as such, has an anti-establishment streak a mile wide. The party recently found out that he was part of the Imperial Security Bureau, soooo there's some distrust there.
     
    Also aboard is Khal'ees'idrogorider, a Chiss Thief who also happens to be Force Sensitive and has a lightsaber, courtesy of a dead Jedi parent (the party didn't find this out until the third session). Leesi's a kleptomaniac and will pickpocket at will. She's also not that great at lightsaber and Force rolls, causing Ten to term her the worst Jedi ever.
     
    Jobi Kan Benwobi is the muscle. A big, hulking Nautolan Heavy/Marauder) with little willpower and intelligence, she befriended Leesi in an Imperial prison (Jobi was in there for tax evasion). Has a blaster rifle named Jobi Jr. with a bayonet. Very skilled in any form of combat and has blindly shot down stealth fighters by pure luck (multiple times). Also known to punch allies when overwhelmed by emotions during arguments. Also: Loves money. A lot.
     
    Then there's Francesca, a Twi'lek Charmer/Gambler. She will talk her way out of anything and everything and give inspiring speeches to allies during combat. Has a cybernetic arm after losing her left arm on Cholganna. Recently acquired some combat skills and, during what's probably her fifth session, got her first kill (there was much celebration).
     
    Lastly, there's Bobba Gump Fett, a Zabrak Bounty Hunter Assassin. Is known to disappear into, uh, seedier buildings of town and leave allies hanging. Has been stuck on the ship lately because the player hasn't been able to come to many sessions.
     
    The players, though, are their own beast.
     
    Ten is played by my brother, Benji, a total Star Wars nut who has some background in acting and writing. Studying to take over the world.
     
    Sasha plays Leesi, and she writes plays, movies, and everything else. Frequently dominates at Game of Thrones trivia.
     
    My girlfriend, Kat, plays Jobi. By virtue of hanging out with me she's a strong grasp of story. Unlike Jobi, Kat's a genius who's working on a PhD in Particle Physics.
     
    Benji's girlfriend, Jen, plays Fran. Science-type who's actually researching cybernetics and stuff along those lines.
     
    Bubba is played by Dylan, does advertising but also writing in free time. Also Star Wars nut.
     
    Having players who are creative types really helps; they'll get into character and throw a lotta curve balls around, even if especially when it screws with their goals.
  7. Ta-metru_defender

    Untitled

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    I was gonna write a post lamenting pending (f)unemployment and the frustrating nature of job hunting, but I will instead talk about the PC's in an Edge of The Empire RPG session I've been running most of the summer.
     
    This whole time I've been expecting them to pull an Avengers and come together for the greater good, but really, they're more like the Guardians of The Galaxy who'll screw up and spend more time talking about money (and not being paid by the Rebel Alliance) than doing the right thing.
     
    Unless the get XP for doing the right thing. Nothing helps players be heroic like getting XP for it (you guys chose not to loose the Nexu on the innocent townsfolk — 10 XP!).
     
    It also helps that some of the players are fellow writers/creative types so spinning things out of control is always fun. And/or spending half an hour being mad at a character for not revealing she was related to an NPC. Not for betraying their trust, mind you, but for not cutting the other PCs in on the friends-and-family discount.
  8. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 229: Meaning Upon Meaning
     
    Every movie monster in the book has some sort of sociocultural commentary associated with it. Zombies are the embodiment of a fear of conformist consumer culture, vampires are the elite rich who drain the life of the poor, werewolves are your neighbor’s double life, Godzilla is nuclear terror made real. A lot of fun can be found in figuring out what these all mean. Is Zombieland about the isolation that comes as a result of being the only people special in a world of copies? Or is it a celebration of life in a post-consumer society?
     
    That’s one thing I love about fiction is that there are as many meanings of it as there are people watching. You see this particularly science fiction and fantasy which, by virtue, often deal with some embodiment of the unknown/other, and thus can really explore the parable-ness of stories. But like I said, meanings. I see The Force Awakens as a story about identity and finding belonging (which makes it different from the original Star Wars despite hitting many of the same plot beats), Firefly is a story fundamentally about family, and Iron Man 2 is about embracing mortality. You could disagree and you’re more than welcome to because, again, the joy of fiction.
     
    A good story has enough substance that you can watch/read/hear/play it multiple times and get different things from it over time. While discussing children’s books, CS Lewis wrote in Of Other Worlds: “No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty(…).” It’s how you can enjoy Prisoner of Azkaban as a kid for its magic and scary monsters, then years later love it for its wonderful take on depression; or how Justice League remains intriguing if you’re twelve or twenty-five.
     
    (500) Days of Summer is perfectly enjoyable as a romcom where the male character is afforded the same amount of emotional intimacy and depth the female lead usually gets. Then you can also read it as a deconstruction of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope that was alive and well in 2009. Or as an exploration of how being selfish and only looking for what you want dooms a relationship. Are any of those wrong? Not necessarily (though if you see Tom or Summer as being an ideal, dreamy, romantic partner… you’re misreading it). Do any of those interpretations discount the other? Unless you’re googley over Tom or Summer, again, no. If I watch this movie again in five years will I find something new (and maybe stop using rhetorical questions)? Yeah, probably. I still love (500) Days of Summer, as much (or more) than I did when I first saw it seven(!) years ago, but the reasons I love it now are really different from when I watched it then.
     
    I mentioned briefly that there could be a wrong reading (Tom and Summer are deeply flawed, deeply selfish characters, not dream lovers), which is true in a way. The LEGO Movie is the hero’s journey retold with LEGO bricks. But is it also anti-capitalism with its overthrow/redemption of an evil businessman? I’d argue not, because, really? But wrong doesn’t necessarily mean invalid, and if you read Tom as being a dream guy even though the writers have outright said he’s not meant to be one, fine, more power to you, you’re still wrong.
     
    Stories are fluid and for a lot, the authors are decidedly dead. So it doesn’t really matter so much what the exact intention was exactly, so much as you connected. This doesn’t mean you can go around saying Gojira isn’t about the Japanese terror of nuclear weapons (because look at the context and everything), but it does allow for a range of interpretations of that. I know the The Force Awakens has belonging as a theme, because Maz mentions it to Rey, but the importance I place on it is all, well, me.
     
    And at the end of the story, that’s the important bit.
  10. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 228: Nothing’s In a Vacuum
     
    San Diego Comic-Con brought with it a new teaser for Netflix and Marvel’s upcoming Luke Cage, featuring said hero beating up bad guys. Ordinarily, this would be cool enough, because, duh. But, before this butt-kicking takes place, we get a shot of Luke putting up the hood of his jacket. It’s a precise shot that focuses a lot of attention into the act: Luke doesn’t just wear his hood up, he deliberately puts it on before heading in.
     
    Luke Cage is making a statement with this teaser: a big black man in a hoodie can be a hero.
     
    Which, given, y’know, everything, is really wonderful.
     
    “So what?” my theoretical straw man asks, “Maybe he just wants to hide his identity.” Which, fine, and sure, a domino mask would be cliché, but it’s still a conscious choice the creators made. And an important one.
     
    Entertainment doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It reflects and comments on the world around it. Luke Cage is coming out in a world wherein being black and wearing a hoodie is grounds for distrust and villainization. For a myriad of reasons, popular perception paints a very negative picture.
     
    And that’s why Luke Cage wearing a hoodie matters. It’s a counter narrative to the scary black man, offering a decidedly different take on it. Sure, he’s still imposing, but he’s the good guy and the hero of this show, the hero. There’s this wonderful hint of antiestablishment about it, which is one of the things that’s got me excited for this show.
     
    One of the other things being that Mike Colter is really hot.
     
    But anyway.
     
    Fiction, and the imagery it creates, exists beyond the work from which it originated. Like I said before, nothing is created in a vacuum anymore, especially not since the rise of Web 2.0 has democratized content generation and facilitated and even greater osmosis of pop (and ‘real’) culture. We are, in many ways, exposed to a lot of the same news and memes, though our takeaways and lenses may be wildly different. Fiction, then, sits in a place where it can comment on it.
     
    Luke Cage is going to be Marvel’s first movie/tv property with an African-American lead (until Black Panther), so there’s a lot riding on it. One of those being the question of what exactly a show about a black character is. Based on the trailer, it seems that Luke Cage is fully aware of its position.
     
    It might not, being a tv show by a major studio/storyteller, be able to take an overly explicit stance (something, by the way, which hasn’t stopped a few of Marvel’s comics from having particularly dope commentary*), but that doesn’t mean it can’t still play with our expectations, whether through imagery, music, or plot. I keep campaigning for different narratives, and it looks like that’s where this one’s headed.
     
    I’m excited.
     
    *Spider-Gwen Annual #1 has a black, female Captain America attacking a caricature of a certain political figure. Captain America: Sam Wilson has recently been dealing with aggressive, militarized police. In Mockingbird you come for the fun and humor, but stay for the biting feminist commentary (and also objectification of male characters).
  11. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 227: The Beauty of Pokémon Go
     
    A recent issue of TIME Magazine (a magazine I usually like) ran a small article about Pokémon Go. In an article describing how the game “shows the unnerving future of augmenting reality,” writer Matt Vella describes players in Prospect Park as “a dozen people shuffling about haphazardly, their zombie eyes fixed on glowing phone screens.”
     
    Okay. Fine.
     
    Honestly, I shouldn’t be too surprised. This is the same publication that ran a cover article about how millennials (ie: me) are entitled and narcissistic; Pokémon Go is more smart-phone enabled shenanigans. But that this article essentially dismisses the game is frustrating. Because yes, Pokémon Go is another game, but it’s position as a augmented reality game makes it something really special.
     
    Something beautiful.
     
    The open-endedness of games like Mass Effect make comparing notes with other players a lot of fun. Who did you romance? What did you save? Red, blue, or green? Your choices in the game give you a common ground. Same with discussing responses to The Last of Us or describing that great moment you had in Halo. Video games create (virtual) experiences and memories. Like any memory, these then become things you talk about.
     
    But Pokémon Go exists in the real world. You don’t catch a Seel in the Seafoam Islands, you catch a Seel in Battery Park. You don’t hatch eggs by walking from Cerulean City to Vermillion City over and over again, you do so by walking to work and back. That gym doesn’t exist in your GameBoy, it’s the Washington Square Arch.
     
    Because of this, those memories become physical. My brother and I roamed the East Village together looking for Pokémon, glued to our phones, yes, but also talking and enjoying the outdoors. The outdoors outside, in the real world. In other words, Pokémon Go makes the very act of walking into an adventure. The game augments reality itself (hence the whole AR genre) into a game.
     
    That Pokémon Go exists in the real world is part of its beauty. Players have to go outside to catch Pokémon, collect items, and challenge gyms. So folks are going to parks, museums, and zoos to find Pokémon. Yes, on their phones, but actually out there.
     
    With the game comes a community, one that, in my experience, has been remarkably positive. Stopping at Astor Place to take over a gym and catching someone’s eye, knowing we’d worked together to claim it in the name of Team Valor. Or striking up a conversation with someone at the Garibaldi Statue Pokéstop where someone used a lure. Then there’s my Facebook feed starting to look more and more like a schoolyard conversation about where to find Pokémon and whose is the best.
     
    Pokémon which, remember, you find in the real world.
     
    Look, I’m twenty-five; smack-dab in the middle of Generation Y. I’m one of those who grew up with the internet and social media. We’re those who see technology not as something to be scared but by which we’ll save the world. Pokémon Go, though probably not quite that extreme, exists within that vein. For all the stories of players finding dead bodies in rivers and falling off cliffs, there are many more about the game helping people deal with anxiety or depression and stories of it providing an avenue of social interaction for autistic kids. You can complain all you want about phone-addled Millennials, but a fear of AR as a harbinger of awfulness is unfounded.
     
    ‘cuz this present is the future.
     
    Our future.
     
    And it’s wonderful.
  12. Ta-metru_defender
    I live over a pizza joint. A semi-famous one that's more expensive than dollar pizza and too milky for my blood, but you get the idea. Also one usually hopping at 2am on a Saturday night for obvious reasons.
     
    Anyway, this pizza joint is also now a Pokéstop. Which is preeeetty great 'cuz I can get a steady stream of Pokéballs.
     
    But.
     
    And this is the magical part.
     
    Everyday, at some time at night, someone decides to put a Lure there. Now, Manhattan is full of Lures at night (must be when the Pokémon trainers come out to hunt). But this one is under my apartment.
     
    Woo drunk Pokémon Go players who enjoy microtransactions!
  13. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 226: Excuse Me As I Geek Out About Rogue One
     
    A new teaser of sorts for Rogue One dropped and it’s the sort of behind-the-scenes sizzle reel that I go nuts for. You’ve got folks on sets, folks in costumes, folks with prop guns; all that good stuff. ‘cuz when you combine Star Wars with moviemaking stuff, you’re really going right up my alley.
     
    It also helps that I’m incredibly psyched for Rogue One.
     
    Right off the bat, there’s the obvious thing that I love the cast’s diversity. It fills my soul with glee to know that there are two Chinese actors in a new Star Wars movie, along with people from all over the place. Not just that, but that these characters aren’t just window dressing but people people. Who, based on what we’ve seen, get to do cool stuff.
     
    At the risk of sounding like a broken record (of which I have no guilt), diversity is friggin’ important, guys. This is Star Wars; it’s science fiction, not reality. I’ll hear you out if you complain about not being able to have a Japanese woman show up during the War of the Roses or a black man in a movie about the Incan Empire, but science fiction is, uh, science fiction. Especially when it’s in the vein of Star Wars; stories set a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. There’s no reason for the world to not be diverse. We’ve got aliens already, so why can’t the (presumable) leaders of the team that steals the plans to the Death Star be a woman and a Latino man?
     
    But beyond that (because there’s more to Rogue One than its wonderfully diverse cast that I will never shut up about), there’s the fact that Gareth Edwards is directing it. Which, as we see more of it and hear more about it, he seems like a great person for this movie.
     
    Which may sound a bit odd, given that his prior major filmography has been Monsters and Godzilla, neither of which are really war movies, a genre which Rogue One seems to be drawing a lot of influence from. But, what Edwards is bringing to Rogue One is a tremendous sense of scale.
     
    What both Monsters and Godzilla do incredibly well is contain an immense sense of scale. When you finally see the titular monsters at the very end they’re treated as being absolutely sublime. There’s a wonderful mixture of terror and awe that’s nothing short of memorable. Godzilla too gave the famous kaiju a special kind of awe, making him feel like an unstoppable force of nature.
     
    Star Wars has usually been about the heroes and the Jedi, the big players in the galaxy. Rogue One steps away from that and tackles more ordinary rebels (or at least the Rebellion-affiliated) in their fight against the Empire. These aren’t people who can cut a hole in an AT-AT with a lightsaber. For these heroes, an AT-AT is really bad news. This is where Edwards shines. Look at the way he portrays the AT-ATs in that first trailer, those machines are huge, destructive monstrosities. If the Empire is going to be this unstoppable military force, then this is the guy to be directing the movie.
     
    Especially since Darth Vader’s going to be showing up.
     
    If you haven’t gathered, I’m really excited for Rogue One. In part because, yes, it’s more cinematic Star Wars stories, but also because it’s a new and different sort of Star Wars story.
  14. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 225: Catching ‘em All
     
    Like many people my age, I grew up playing Pokémon. And man, I caught ‘em all. Literally all of ‘em. At least in Yellow and Gold; I got close in Ruby and that’s where I stopped.
     
    So when Pokémon Go was first announced last year I thought it seemed really cool. Like worth upgrading my four-year-old phone for. In case you haven’t heard, here’s the skinny on Go:
     
    It’s Pokémon in real life. You go places, your phone tells you there’s a Pokémon there, you catch it. Certain landmarks are gyms where you can battle people and other landmarks give you items. Again, it’s Pokémon in real life.
     
    Now, the game is very much in its infancy. It’s a drain on battery and there isn’t much in the way of depth to the game (there is no way to traditionally level up Pokémon, which means you’ll probably find yourself releasing your starter). Then there’s the awful server lag currently present that makes playing chancey at best. A game’s not great if you can’t really play it. It’s a mess.
     
    And yet.
     
    I’ve found myself walking through Washington Square Park, looking for Pokémon with friends, and running into other people also looking for Pokémon. I walked to the Arch to challenge the gym there and, upon seeing that someone had used a Lure Module on the Gibraldi Statue, sat around there catching Pokémon with a handful of strangers. And then all of us getting excited when a hitherto uncaught Ekans showed up.
     
    I think this is where the beauty of Pokémon Go, even in its nascent state, shines. There’s an excitement in the traditional Pokémon games when a random encounter yields that one Pokémon you’ve spent ages searching for (I’m looking at you, Tauros). Same with when that egg you’ve been walking around with forever finally hatches. Go takes that feeling of success and translates it to real life. When an egg hatches it’s because you’ve carried it for five kilometers. Not your digital avatar walking around Johto, but you, in real life, walking around your town. When you, at last, finally get a Pinsir it’s because you decided to walk to Starbucks for coffee instead of spending your break inside. That joy you got in the games is made visceral. Now your ability to catch ‘em all is a direct result of your own exploring — you’re looking for Pokémon.
     
    It helps that the simple mechanics (go somewhere, find a thing, get a thing, look for a better thing) is bolstered by the pop culture familiarity brought on by Pokémon. It’s no coincidence that the available Pokémon are the original 150, the ones people my age fondly remember from growing up. There’s an appeal to the familiar, and man, it’s working — I don’t think I’ve been this excited to find a Bellsprout since I was seven. There’s an implicit invitation in the game to be a kid again, to look around your world with a wonderment because that mural on the wall could be a Pokémon Gym and there’s a Bulbasaur down that road in the West Village.
     
    Pokémon Go still has a lot of room to grow — and it’ll have to to keep people interested over the long term. But for now, just a couple days out of the gate, it’s a whole lotta simple, magical, fun.
     
    Except for those Rattatas. I am so sick of finding freaking Rattatas.
  15. Ta-metru_defender
    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 the same conceit: Two heroes fight each other. Thus, if you want both characters to remain sympathetic, they’d better have a dang good reason to be fighting. Funnily, both movies end up on the topic of collateral damage. In Civil War, Tony Stark/Iron Man and Steve Rogers/Captain America disagree on whether to put the Avengers under UN oversight, something that is complicated when brainwashed assassin Bucky Barnes enters the fray, forcing Steve to go outside the law. Bam, conflict.
     
    In BvS, Batman doesn’t like how Superman is so powerful and causes so much collateral damage, and Superman doesn’t like Batman because he, um, takes the law into his own hands? Right off the bat the difference is clear, Civil War had a clear conflict, BvS was murky at best. Watching BvS, I was never sure why they were fighting, what it was they disagreed on. Furthermore, BvS has no complications in the conflict between Batman and Superman; they don’t like each other in the beginning, and continue to dislike each other the same amount until the fight. In Civil War the accords form the initial conflict, which then get complicated by Bucky’s reappearance and what they uncover about Zemo. Meanwhile, in BvS, the status quo between Batman and Superman doesn’t really change.
     
    Which is weird; you’d think that with Lex Luthor running around with Kryponite and Zod’s corpse he’d be in a good place to incite some tension between the two. However, he doesn’t have any direct bearing on the plot until he kidnaps and threatens Superman’s mom well into the second hour (blowing up the Capitol sends Superman into exile and doesn’t directly escalate the conflict between the two heroes). Compare this to Civil War, where Zemo (who fulfills the same role as Luthor) blows up the UN (and frames Bucky), thereby setting Cap on a path that’ll put him at total odds against Tony. That’s before he sets Bucky on the other Avengers too, by the way. In other words, Civil War escalates the animosity between its two heroes. By the time they come to blows, we totally get why.
     
    The coming to blows bit is where we see another divide. In BvS, Batman and Superman’s fight is just a skirmish before their big brawl against Doomsday. Civil War has a big airport fight with all the heroes happen before Steve and Tony’s one-on-one. This ordering shows where the priorities of each movie lie. See, you save the best, biggest, and most important climax for last. Rey and Kylo fight after Poe blows up Starkiller base. Frodo climbs Mount Doom after the battle of the Pelennor Fields. If the fight against Doomsday is the Biggest Moment of BvS, then the “Dawn of Justice” subtitle becomes the most important part. Which is weird, because the whole movie up to that point has been ploddingly trying to excite us to watch the heroes fight, only for the big thing to be them teaming up. Despite Batman versus Superman being the dang title, the ending tells us we’re not supposed to be interested in watching them fight. In Civil War, however, Steve and Tony throw down comes at the very end and proves a catharsis for the entire movie.
     
    Okay, so, there’s actually a lot more about these movies. Both of them have a third party who joins them in the climax, though where Wonder Woman gives interesting looks throughout, Black Panther brings an additional point of view to the plot and ends up being the only true hero. Both have heroes manipulated into fighting, but while Lex kidnaps Superman’s mom, Tony finds out Steve’s best friend kill his parents (and so Tony fights Bucky [and Steve] because he wants to, while Superman is doing it because he has to). Then there’s also BvS contorting Batman and Superman into being funhouse mirrors of their accepted selves to fit the plot, while Civil War sees Steve and Tony’s own flaws orchestrate their undoing.
     
    But I’m at my word limit and it’s getting late here, so I’m ending this here. Point of all this? Sometimes it’s worth watching a lesser movie to appreciate one that does the same thing better.
     
    Except for Fant4stic. That movie just tells you what not to do.
  17. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 223: Sticking To The Obvious
     
    I put off watching Spotlight for a while. It had a lot going for it — talented cast and the subject matter — reporters investigating child abuse covered up by the Catholic Church — was charged, tragic, and topical. Way I saw it, this was gonna be a heavy, intense movie. Hence putting off watching a presumably gut-wrenching movie
     
    Which is why it’s so frustrating that Spotlight wastes so much potential in favor of being painfully obvious at best, and poor melodrama at worst.
     
    Spotlight is definitely about something: namely the Catholic Church covering up child abuse scandals. This is undoubtedly an important topic. The thing is, it doesn’t say anything about that, except that, well, it’s bad. Which it is, but that’s the obvious thing. It doesn’t say anything more about it, nothing about personal impact.
     
    Since it’s hard to critique this movie in a vacuum, let’s compare it to The Big Short, shall we? There are some similarities; both discuss recent happenings, and both are about a group of people looking into it and are proven right. In Short this is about finance people who saw the housing crash coming and invested on it happening (and they’re right).
     
    Now, Short has an excellent moment when the main characters are finally proven right when the housing market crashes. But rather than just letting it be a victory, the movie turns it tragic when the protagonists realize just what it means. Yes, they’re rich, but the economy is screwed over. It’s not sad just because we know what it means, but it’s sad because the characters realize exactly what their predictions mean.
     
    Conversely, Spotlight has no stakes: the coverup is never made personal. The abuse victims who step forward are supporting characters, plot devices with some great moments, but we aren’t really invested in them. As for the main characters? They’re all lapsed Catholics, which is touched on in one quick scene and never comes up again. The closest we get is when Sacha Pfeiffer mentions that she can’t go to Mass with her grandmother anymore. But we don’t see how the revelations about the Church has affected their relationship (as Sacha only goes to church because of her grandmother). Imagine if we’d been invested in Sacha and her grandmother and we’d seen the rift Sacha’s pursuit of the coverup created between them.
     
    As the movie is, there’s precious little conflict in the film. The Spotlight team never argue amongst themselves and there’s no debate at the newspaper if they should continue pouring all their time into this story. Furthermore, for all the talk of the influence of the Catholic Church on Boston, they don’t really get in the way of the team at all. We’re told that there’s a coverup — and we’re even shown it happening in the first scene — but beyond that the Church doesn’t take an active role in stopping the uncovering. Thus the Spotlight team carries on their investigation without any major obstacles and with little personal/non-professional investment.
     
    All this could be done well enough, but the thing is Spotlight doesn’t spend time unpacking what the cover up really means. Yes, it’s bad, but so what? The movie doesn’t go any further than the first thought. Herein is Spotlight’s biggest flaw: it’s obvious, safe. It’s a good portrayal of investigative journalism, but doesn’t do much to explore just how important it is. Say that covering up child abuse is bad, but don’t get personal with it. Have all the potentiality for negative fallout should the piece go to print, but instead have them getting it published be a plain, obvious, victory. Use ominous piano music to remind us that this is serious.
     
    Now, much of my dissatisfaction with Spotlight stems with my own expectations. Having followed the more recent spate of news concerning the Catholic Church covering up child abuse, I was expecting a movie that really got into it, really explored the corruption and awfulness; I wanted a movie that stressed how much of a fight it was to get this to light. That Spotlight played it so safe was disappointing. So much more could have been done with what they had that the movie can’t help but to end up being a bit of a let down.
  18. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 222: Top Nine Movies of 2015
     
    Woah, it’s June, and I haven’t done of these yet? Big reason is because there are some movies that I still haven’t seen. Like Carol, which I really need to get around to soon. Then there’s The Room, which I really should see, but am not sure if I’m ready for the toll of that movie.
     
    So anyway, here are my, at current, top nine movies of 2015, with an extra space left for a movie that catches me in left field.
     
    9. The Martian
    It’s a well done movie about a Mars exploration; honestly that’s all The Martian needed. But that it’s dang entertaining and has a strong scientific (if not totally accurate) bent just makes it that much better.
     
    8. The Big Short
    This is a movie that made me not only understand, but laugh at the housing crash that may or may not screw over my financial future.
     
    Yay.
     
    7. Sicario
    Woo, another movie about cartels. Except Sicario exists in a very gray world, where good and bad are hardly as clean cut as you’d want them to be. It’s a gripping story, where the lesser of two evils mayn’t be as much of a lesser evil as you’d hope. Plus, this is a movie that makes every freaking gunshot count.
     
    6. Ex Machina
    Ex Machina is a small movie that feels so much bigger. It’s tight focus on three characters really lets it explore them, and grapple with the questions of artificial intelligence. Plus, I love me some haunting science fiction, and that’s definitely what this movie is.
     
    5. Infinitely Polar Bear
    There’s a beautiful scene early on between the two leads as Maggie encourages Cam that he is capable of taking care of their daughters alone, despite his bipolar disorder. It’s heartbreaking, filled with a tragic honesty that goes on to permeate the entire movie. It’s not a story of recovery — that’d be too easy — instead it tells a story about not being alright. And it’s all the better for it.
     
    4. Inside Out
    I’m a Pixar nut; I’ve seen every one since Finding Nemo in theaters. What’s remarkable about Inside Out is how it handles a very grownup topic — depression — with such nuance. It, like Polar Bear is a story about not being alright; and though this one ends with recovery it is no less potent.
     
    3. Mad Max: Fury Road
    Dang, dude. This is an action movie. The movie’s outlandish spectacles and nonstop action grip you from start to finish. That it’s grounded with a strong feminist perspective is a bonus that makes it so much better. And that’s not even getting into the sheer craft of how it’s shot. I want more movies like this.
     
    2. Creed
    Watch this scene.
     
    I can’t think of a movie as comfortable in its own skin as Creed. Filled with a youthful energy that fuels a terrific underdog story of identity, the movie is an expertly crafted fist-pumping, cheer-worthy movie. Plus, its use of motivated long takes shows The Revenant how to do it.
     
    1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
    Could it have been any other movie? It’s a phenomenal follow up to the original, that captures the beautiful optimism that made the originals so special. But it’s the old movies updated with wonderful diversity and a worthy successor of a protagonist. This is Star Wars, this is a movie that reminds me why I like telling stories. This one wins, hands down.
  19. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 221: Visions of The Future
     
    There are a lot of things I like about science fiction, chief among them the genre’s capacity for using metaphor to discuss bigger ideas. Like how the original Gojira explored nuclear fears and Edwards’ Godzilla discussed the question of the relation between humanity and the environment.
     
    But another thing I really like about science fiction is the way it tries to guess what happens next. Ender’s Game saw the potential of computer networks for a user generated news network, though writer Orson Scott Card didn’t quite capture just how prolific the user generated and focused content of Web 2.0 would be. The divide that exists between the future that could be and the future that is is the source of so much fun.
     
    It also says a lot about the concerns of society. Look at how many 80s films set in the near-future showcased crime-riddled New Yorks and Los Angeleses. Or New York as a walled off prison colony that Snake Pliskin has to escape from. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that rising crime was on the public consciousness.
     
    So then it’s interesting to look at what today’s science fiction says about tomorrow. Now, the beauty of science fiction is that it doesn’t have to be accurate, just plausible. I doubt anyone seriously believed New York would become a giant prison, but the looming potential for crime was there. Take Firefly, which envisions a future where the combined might of the United States and China was able to colonize space in order to escape a decaying earth. A logical assumption, what with China on the rise in the early 2000’s.
     
    The Expanse also features a spacefaring humanity, with one of the protagonists being part of a crew mining ice from asteroids. Which makes sense, since getting water would be an essential part of sustaining and off world colony. Another tiny detail of The Expanse that I love is the existence of a seawall around New York. It’s a small thing, but one that grounds the future in a certain kind of realism. Rising sea levels will necessitate some sort of countermeasure, and a seawall makes enough sense.
     
    The Windup Girl takes things in a different direction. Rising sea levels consumed many cities (including New York — why’s it always New York?) and others, like Bangkok, sink a wealth of resources into keeping the ocean at bay. But Paolo Bacigalupi paints a grim image of the future, one where a scarcity of fuel has plunged humanity into a time when electricity as we know it now is a distant memory. Now genetically engineered domestic animals turn cranks to power machinery and store springs with potential energy. It seems old fashioned, but at the same time, all too likely.
     
    It’s a bleak outlook to be sure, but Bacigalupi’s novel (which I’m still reading, as of this writing) is also set against a world where genetic modification and patented genes are rampant. Sure, it sounds like science fiction, but both are things currently being discussed. A world where rice itself is copyrighted isn’t as nonsensical as it would have sounded a few years ago. The Windup Girl just takes sends things to a pessimistic conclusion.
     
    Maybe in a couple decades we’ll have solved the energy crisis and stopped the sea levels from rising and these futures will look as ridiculous as assumptions that the United States and USSR would still be at war in the 2030s (in space!). But it’s okay to be wrong, it’s fun to imagine what’ll happen next. Sometimes things turn out right, sometimes not. Still makes for a good read.
  20. Ta-metru_defender
    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 respect).
     
    Like I said, incredibly stupid.
     
    But.
     
    But but but, what makes Hot Rod so flipping great is how well it harnesses that stupidity. It’s not a smart comedy, and has no intention to be, but it’s done really well. It’s not just dumb jokes, well, it is, but the dumb jokes are couched with a great deal of craft. The team behind the movie (which happens to be a pre-“I’m On a Boat” Lonely Island) know exactly what they’re doing throughout.
     
    Because of this, laughs don’t feel cheap. Yes, there’ll be a throwaway gag involving Cool Beans or exactly how it is you proceed that elusive ‘wh’ sound, but the comedy is anchored in character. There’s a strong central story, characters are fleshed out and have goals; the comedy, stupid as it may be, exists in tandem with the story. The characters don’t feel like they’re just there to be funny or laughed at; it is, put simply, a clever stupid movie.
     
    So why does Hot Rod work?
     
    Hot Rod doesn’t talk down to its audience. Though the film’s humor relies primarily on slapstick, non sequiturs, and downright silliness, never once does it treat its viewers as if they are idiots. In that process, the movie establishes that the audience is in on the joke. The movie isn’t just trying to serve up something barely palatable for laughs. It also helps that Hot Rod isn’t particularly mean. For all its silliness, Hot Rod lets its characters live. There’s nothing vindictive about Rod falling in a pool, or Rod tumbling down a hill for an inane amount of time, or Rod getting hit by a van (again). We enjoy Rod’s pain, but we’re not interested in watching him suffer. Because, and this may be in part to blame on Andy Samberg’s performance, we actually like Rod.
     
    And that’s the proverbial second shoe. Couched among all those silly jokes is that sense of character I mentioned earlier. Rod and his crew, Kevin, Dave, Rico, and Denise, don’t exist just for the sake of jokes. Yes, they’re funny, often outright hilarious, but amidst all that humor are genuine relationships. The characters feel real — well, as real as they can in such an odd world — and, as such, we get invested in them and their plight. We want these idiots to succeed, and we care about their relationships. Stupid as Hot Rod might be, it doesn’t dispense with the humanity of the story.
     
    That’s the thing about Hot Rod, it doesn’t just coast by on stupid and silly jokes, it actually bothers to create a story and characters for those jokes to exist in. Even though they aren’t particularly groundbreaking, they’re executed with enough of a precision that it works on a narrative level. As stupid as it can be, there is a great intelligence in its creation. The movie knows when and how to be silly, there’s a deftness, a cleverness to its stupidity.
     
    And that
    .
  23. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 219: Being There
     
    It’s a stormy night in 1995 and you’re a college student just returned from a year abroad. During that time your family moved to a large house on the outskirts of town. A house, you discover, without anyone home that looks like it’s been stolen.
     
    That’s how Gone Home opens, a game where you assume the role of Kaitlin and explore your new house, trying to figure out what happened during the year you were away.
     
    Now, Gone Home toes the line of being a video game. Sure, it’s ‘played,’ but there’s little in the way of actual choices to be made; you’re essentially walking around. There’s no proper conflict, no goombas to stomp nor Russians to shoot; you’re exploring a house and trying to discover what happened to your family. It’s a cool experience rife with environmental storytelling that sits somewhere as a first-person adventure game where the emotional heft comes from a sense of being there.
     
    But that’s Gone Home, a game built entirely around that experience by an independent developer. It’s not something you’d expect to see in a Triple-A video game, the blockbusters of the gaming world. These games, much like movie blockbusters, focus on the action with the story being told through brief cutscenes (or, in the case of the Metal Gear Solid series, radio calls that last a quarter of Gone Home’s playtime). There’s a distinct separation of gameplay and story.
     
    And this is where I talk about Uncharted.
     
    Now, the Uncharted games have made a reputation for themselves by allowing you to play an action movie. Meaning that you don’t just watch Nathan Drake trying to grab on to a falling cargo container or running through a crumbling city; you, the player as Nathan Drake, get to try to grab on to falling cargo containers and run through crumbling cities. Big moments that would either be a cutscene or ignored entirely are made playable. It makes the action in Uncharted feel that much more visceral, you get to be the action hero.
     
    Story, though, has mostly been done through cutscenes and bits of banter interspaced through gameplay. In that sense, Uncharted wasn’t really doing too much besides telling great stories.
     
    Then, earlier this month, came Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Still a grand action-adventure story that would make Indiana Jones jealous, this entry took the time in the story’s downbeats to really let you be there.
     
    Much of the central tension stems from Nathan being persuaded to leave the normal life he’s built with his wife, Elena. But the game doesn’t just tell you this, because that’d be obvious and boring. Rather, once we’ve caught up to Nathan in the present, we get the beautiful chapter “A Normal Life.” In it, the player can explore Nathan’s house, starting in the attic where they can look at notes and mementos of Nathan’s prior adventures before exploring the rest of the house where they can flip through a book of wedding photos and look at to do post-its on the fridge before sitting down with Elena to talk and play a video game (yes, in a video game; it’s awesome). What this delightfully quiet chapter does is put the player in Nathan’s shoes, establishing what he’d be walking away from were it to go on another adventure. Rather than just having Nathan say “I have a good life” in a cutscene, A Thief’s End employs Gone Home’s technique and has the player explore a space, using the clues to form their own narrative.
     
    In other words, “A Normal Life” has the player playing a cutscene, only instead of an action one, it’s a purely story and emotional focused beat. You don’t fight anyone or climb a rockface, instead you just get to be there.
     
    Which is pretty friggin’ fantastic.
  24. Ta-metru_defender
    I've been wondering why this latest season of Game of Thrones hasn't felt as enticing as usual, why it feels a little meandering-y. And I think it may be because of a lack of conflict? Last season had clear bits: Tyrion and Varys were going to Meereen (politicking their way there), Jon Snow was trying to save the wildlings (against Alliser), Jamie, with Bron, was trapped in boringland trying to get his daughter-neice back (against the boringones).
     
    This season hasn't had that much of a conflict yet. Sansa and Jon have been doing their thing, Arya's moving in circles, etc. No conflict has lasted more than one episode, besides Daenerys's (which has been without the rest of her crew) and the King's Landing politicians verses Sparrow one. Even Littlefinger (who's the best) has just been politicking in circles.
     
    Basically, GoT needs more friggin' conflict.
  25. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 218: Superhero Stardom (A Response)
     
    There’s a recent New York Times article I came across that laments how the rise of the superhero genre has conflated actor-stardom with character-stardom. The article itself doesn’t really chase down the points too well, but the central gist (as far as I can see) is that in the recent slate of films, characters have come to trump actors. As Wesley Morris suggests in the article, when you watch Oceans Eleven, it’s George Clooney doing all the cool stuff as Danny Ocean; but when you watch Rush, you don’t see Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt, you see Thor as James Hunt. And as more big name actors get roped into superhero films (Cate Blanchett’s gonna be in Thor: Ragnarok!), it’s more actors being roped in to playing a specific character.
     
    Which makes Morris’ point of view seem a little weird. He implies that the fun of Ocean’s Eleven is seeing the star-studded cast play off of each other, whereas Civil War is more about watching the characters interact; the former being better. Which begs the question of whether or not you’re supposed to forget that it’s an actor playing a character and not something happening before you.
     
    Now, the attitude here feels a lot like that kid who’s angry you got the same toys they did. For ages, the idea of a superhero has been derided. Like science fiction and fantasy it was that genre, one that no serious actor would get involved in. Heck, we even had a movie called Birdman which was all about how superhero films and all their sequels was where art went to die. Except now they are, and with it, taking on (and being known by) personae that they don’t get to create per se. Superheroes are a cultural mythology, why else are we able to discuss who’s the “better Batman?” Taking up the cowl means playing someone bigger than life. Kinda like being the next guy to play James Bond.
     
    Hang on.
     
    See, this is where things start to get a little weird (and Morris’ argument starts to fall down). Daniel Craig’s Bond is sharply different from Pierce Brosnan’s Bond. I mean, sure, they’re the same character, just done differently. Same with Clooney, Bale, and Affleck’s Batman. There’s still some wiggle room in really getting to build a character.
     
    But, all the same, the more recent superhero movies are very much adaptions of the comic books; someone like Batman’s very much in the public consciousness, more so than, say, Star Lord was in 2013. It would make sense, then, that casting Chris Pratt as Peter Quill would allow for a straight shot of an adaption.
     
    Except, again, it’s kinda not. Star Lord as he appeared in the comics was quite different from the one in Guardians of the Galaxy, more authoritative and less bumbling, though still prone to having everything blow up in his face. Much of Peter Quill in the film — and who he’s become in the comics these days — grew out of Chris Pratt’s performance and James Gunn’s script. So sure, it was based on something, but there was still a big room to build there. Heck, you can see it with all of the MCU characters.
     
    In spending a chunk of today trying to pry apart Wesley Morris’ article I kept losing track of his point (which may be because he doesn’t back it up much). In any case, based on the title, is about the changing role of celebrity that the uptick of superhero film franchises has brought about. Which, alright, sure; but we’ve also changed from the studio system of the ‘50s. Marvel with the MCU (and, Fox with X-Men and DC with their attempts at catchup) are working on a new form of storytelling, one that sits somewhere at the nexus of film, television, comics, and those old serials from forever ago. Maybe it’s time that the nature of stardom changes, what with the steady rise of nerd culture into the mainstream. After all, the geeks shall inherit the earth.
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