It took a while, but the new season of Stranger Things is out, or at least the first half of it. It’s pretty good, though the longer episode lengths (around 70 minutes a pop) plus the geographically scattered characters does mean the plot plods in places, but when it gets going it’s still a lot… Continue reading The Weight of Mythology
Behind The Curtain
I’ve always enjoyed looking behind the scenes. And I do mean always; I remember as a younger kid loving seeing how movies are made or devouring those books that explain how, like, paper is made and television works. It all seems just so cool. I knew someone once who said she grew to not like… Continue reading Behind The Curtain
Catharsis and Kenobi
So, the Disney+ series about Obi-Wan Kenobi (titled, uh, Obi-Wan Kenobi) came out on Friday and it is a fantastic exercise in catharsis. And I want to talk about that, because after this week I needed some damn catharsis. Catharsis, as Aristotle defined it in his Poetics way back when, is a purging of emotions.… Continue reading Catharsis and Kenobi
Chip & Dale & Nic(k)
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a movie where Nick Cage (played by Nic Cage) finds himself embroiled in a criminal conspiracy. Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers is a movie where Chip and Dale (the stars of the cartoon Rescue Rangers) find themselves embroiled in a criminal conspiracy. Both of these movies are pretty… Continue reading Chip & Dale & Nic(k)
Lightness
There’s a lot of depressing crap going on in the world right now. A lot of stuff happening that weighs heavy on me and so when it’s time to sit down and write this blogpost it feels hard to ignore it. But I also know that, at a certain point, there comes a time to… Continue reading Lightness
Big Ol’ Trees
Greetings from Sequoia National Forest! I’m writing this from a cabin a few miles outside the park’s boundary, having just hiked through that forest and visited a brewery (as is my post-hike tradition). Because, despite having cultivated a scholarly persona through this blog, I am, in fact, a fan of hikes and such. And not… Continue reading Big Ol’ Trees
Farfetch’d Language
There is a Pokémon named Farfetch’d. It’s not one of the really cool ones either, Farfetch’d is literally a duck holding a leek. Behold, the legendary creativity of Generation I. Bulbapedia tells me that the name is a play on the Japanese idiom it’s based on, about a duck with a spring onion being a… Continue reading Farfetch’d Language
Thors
I’m quite curious about Thor: Love and Thunder, the next Thor movie from Taika Waititi ('curious,' by the way, is how you say 'excited' while still sounding intellectual). The curiosity — and despite what the parentheses may have suggested, there is actual curiosity — stems in part from the Thor in question not being the… Continue reading Thors
Spidey’s Kicks
I started playing Spider-Man: Miles Morales recently, in-between outs of Horizon Forbidden West (80+ hours and 75% done!). It’s great so far; I mean, it’s more Spider-Man and that was a game I really liked. It’s fun to play as Miles and I’m enjoying his arc (and I look forward to seeing where it goes).… Continue reading Spidey’s Kicks
Side quests of War
I’ve been slowly making my way through God of War, a game from a series I’ve never played before and known very little about. It’s fun, coming to a series like this in its older-and-wiser stage (I supposed it’d be like having Uncharted 4 as your first Uncharted game, or Logan your first Wolverine movie).… Continue reading Side quests of War
Essays, Not Rants! 