Life’s Little Stories & The Best One I was Told

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In my adult life I’ve strongly developed a reverence for the power that stories hold over us. They act as points of reference for us on morals and how to interact. They frighten us, give us hope, influence us to love, hate, laugh, and cry. While fiction in all its forms is the source of much of this, the idea of story here branches to experiences and ideas we share with one another, absorbed as we grow and mature. While there are many big stories that require a lot of thought and experience with, there are little stories too, which can be trickier. Maybe only a statement or idea expressed in a few words, little stories can expand in our minds. I’ve found that I fill in the gaps with all other narrative tropes I’m aware of that fit.Read More »

Movie Review – It Follows

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It Follows is a 2014 supernatural horror film, directed by David Robert Mitchell and starring Maika Monroe. The story follows Jay Height (Monroe), a girl who is pursued by a supernatural entity after having sexual relations with a boy while on a date. She quickly learns that the entity can take the form of any person — stranger or familiar — and will endlessly pursue her until it catches her, unless she passes the curse on to someone else by having sex with them.Read More »

Favourites: Far-Seer by Robert J. Sawyer

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The first time I picked up Far-Seer by Robert J. Sawyer it was in a library in my middle school. I had never heard of the book or the author before, but I was drawn to the cover, which unashamedly displayed the image of an evolved tyrannosaur wearing a sash and using astrological instruments. I’ve always been drawn to reptiles — and by extension dinosaurs and dragons — so I was immediately interested. Growing up, I always wanted a story focused on a reptilian character; even series like Redwall, which featured nonhuman characters, were all mammals.Read More »

Book Review – Primitive Mythology by Joseph Campbell

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Primitive Mythology is the first volume of The Masks of God, a four volume work by Joseph Campbell. Campbell is well known for his other works in the field of mythology The Hero with a Thousand Faces and the PBS series The Power of Myth. He was the creator of the concept of the monomyth (one myth) — a word he borrowed from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake — which essentially refers to a theory that all mythic stories are variations of a single great narrative, which is made evident by themes, tropes, and other elements common among numerous great myths around the world, regardless of place and time. While The Hero with a Thousand Faces — which I understand to be his most renowned written work — approaches this idea from the perspective of psychology, The Masks of God approaches it more through anthropology and history.Read More »

Reflecting on Brody’s Ghost

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Brody’s Ghost is a supernatural, crime, and mystery comic book series published by Dark Horse Comics. The story and art are by Mark Crilley, also known for the Akiko and Miki Falls series. He has become increasingly well-known over the last several years thanks to his YouTube channel, where he produces How-To-Draw videos every week. It was through this channel that I first heard about his series, and I started reading back when it came out in July 2010. This past April the sixth volume of the series came out, bringing the story to a close. With the series all wrapped up after five years, I’d like to take this time to reflect a little upon it — not quite as in depth as a review of each volume, but an overview of my feelings as a whole.Read More »

Movie Review – Mad Max: Fury Road

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Mad Max: Fury Road is an Australian-American post-apocalyptic action film directed, produced, and co-written by George Miller. It is the fourth film in the Mad Max franchise, starring Tom Hardy as the title character Max Rockatansky, and Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa. Following a catastrophic nuclear war, the world is a desert wasteland where gasoline and water are rare commodities. Max, a lone survivor, is captured by the War Boys, members of Immortan Joe’s army — a tyrannical cult leader whose seat of power is a citadel with access to fresh water and agriculture. After being deemed a universal blood donor for War Boys in need, Max gets caught up in the pursuit of Imperator Furiosa. She is one of Joe’s higher ranked officers who betrays him by attempting to smuggle his harem of wives — selected for breeding — away from his citadel.Read More »

Comic Book Review – Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

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Hyperbole and a Half is a 2013 book by Allie Brosh, compiling anecdotes of “unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened,” from her childhood and adult life. The book adapts her web comic/blog of the same name: text along with intentionally crude drawings done in Paintbrush. Along with seven and a half reader favourite stories included within, there are ten and a half original stories — half because one story is old, but with new content.Read More »

First Impressions: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season One

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CHLOE BENNET, ELIZABETH HENSTRIDGE, IAIN DE CAESTECKER, CLARK GREGG, MING-NA WEN, BRETT DALTON

Although I’m a big fan of the Marvel films and the new Daredevil series, I’m only just getting started watching the ABC television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which began in September 2013. The series specifically takes place after the first Avengers film, following recurring Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) character Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his new hand-picked team of agents. They respond to/investigate superhumans and related anomalous objects on the behalf of the titular peacekeeping spy agency. While I have only watched five episodes so far, I have some first impressions on the series I thought I’d share, especially since the closing of the fifth episode marks a bit of a turning point for me.Read More »

Movie Review – Atrocious

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A lot of films were left on the backlog from Halloween last year that I simply didn’t get to. There were either others I was more interested in, or I simply didn’t have time. So, I recently decided to dive into one of them and watched Atrocious, a 2010 Spanish found-footage horror film by director Fernando Barreda Luna. Though I didn’t know much about what to expect, the description and preview images looked intriguing enough that I was hopeful for a compelling found-footage experience.Read More »

Book Review – Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

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Invisible Monsters is a 1999 transgressive fiction novel by Chuck Palahniuk, and was his third novel published. The novel follows an unnamed, disfigured woman who also serves as the narrator. She travels across the United States and parts of Canada with Brandy Alexander, her glamorous transgender companion, who bestows upon her many aliases as they rip off wealthy open-houses for prescription drugs to sell.Read More »