I am endlessly fascinated by mediums. No, not people who claim to talk to ghosts; rather the forms that stories can take. Why does this story work better as a novel? Why this a video game? Why that a play? It’s usually adaptations where you can see the cracks that are the chasms between mediums.… Continue reading Motivated Acceleration
Tag: Movies
Between a Wookie and a Hard Place
A recent trailer for Solo, that new Star Wars movie about, uh, Han Solo, ends with a bit of a cliffhanger. A (space) train hurtles along its tracks around a mountain as a battle rages atop it. It comes close to the cliff side and hanging out the train is none other then Chewbacca, and… Continue reading Between a Wookie and a Hard Place
Top Nine Movies of 2017
So it’s almost halfway through the year and I’m finally putting together my year end list. For 2017. Yeah. Kinda forgot about it. And by forgot about I mean procrastinated. Anyway! Here we go! Top Nine; leaving a space just in case there was something amazing I missed. 9. Logan This one edges out Thor… Continue reading Top Nine Movies of 2017
Letting Lara Down
I was pretty excited for the Tomb Raider movie that came out a couple weeks ago. I’m a huge fan of the game it was based on, the Tomb Raider reboot that came out in 2013. The game was an origin story for Lara Croft, one that gameplay-wise took cues from the Uncharted series it… Continue reading Letting Lara Down
Star Wars as an Anti-Capitalist Discourse
Oh you thought I was kidding? Here we go. Star Wars takes a lot of cues from Westerns. Characters like Han Solo and places like Mos Eisley’s cantina make it pretty obvious. But it’s also apparent in where it takes place: the fringes of society. Be they remote planets desert or frozen, these stories take… Continue reading Star Wars as an Anti-Capitalist Discourse
The End of (Star) War(s)
After the original Star Wars trilogy wrapped up, Lucasfilm started letting other people play in the sandbox they’d created. And so the Expanded Universe came about: more stories set in the Star Wars universe continuing the adventures of Luke, Han, and Leia. Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy really kicked the EU into high gear, and an… Continue reading The End of (Star) War(s)
A Celebration
I’m a nerd. That kinda really goes without saying. Spend five minutes on my blog and you’ll see me talking about Firefly, giant robots, The Lord of The Rings, comic books, Jacques the Fatalist, and looking at video games through a surprisingly feminist lens. I really enjoy this stuff. And over the years nerd culture… Continue reading A Celebration
Lost The Heart
Sometimes it’s hard to explain why something good is so good; why does this one movie work. Other times, you have an example of the same thing executed less well and you’re all “ah, that’s why that one was so good.” So let’s talk Pacific Rim Uprising, and by extension, the original too. Ostensibly, both… Continue reading Lost The Heart
Beauty in Destruction
I saw Annihilation this week, which, y’know, shouldn’t really be surprising. I like Alex Garland as a writer (Never Let Me Go is heartbreakingly beautiful, Dredd is a solid action movie) and enjoyed his directorial debut in Ex Machina. Annihilation is science fiction replete with a primarily female cast, so it checks a lot of… Continue reading Beauty in Destruction
Simple Pleasures
I saw Game Night last night and it’s a delight of a movie. It takes a clever conceit (an immersive game night goes a step too far) and builds on it to great affect. There are some really clever turns that mix with a movie full of a surprising amount of heart and some great… Continue reading Simple Pleasures
Essays, Not Rants! 