Hesitation Near The End

There is a phenomenon I have experienced throughout much of my life that I haven’t been self-conscious of until very recently. It is an obscure sorrow that I have become increasingly aware of — credit to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows for inspiring this kind of reflection — and I’ve begun to feel that there are probably a lot of other people who feel the same way.

There are people who love to marathon through shows, movies, speed-run games, or speed read. While they may share my experience, I feel it applies more specifically to the way I go through things. I read a lot, but I’m not particularly fast at it. My pace gets the job done, but I hardly read fast enough to finish even a short book in one sitting. I can spend even greater amounts of time on a game, or a series, where going back to the material becomes a regular routine in my life.Read More »

Scooby-Doo! & My Ideal Wrestling

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Having been curious since it came out, this past week I watched Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery, a direct-to-video movie co-produced by Warner Bros. Animation and WWE Studios. I’ve been a casual fan of pro wrestling and the WWE for a few years now, and I grew up enjoying a lot of Scooby-Doo, so the idea of the two pairing up seemed both bizarre and entertaining.

The movie played out exactly as anybody familiar with a Scooby-Doo storyline would expect, complete with red herring antagonists, really convoluted technology and plot devices, and an obvious twist reveal on who the monster really was. I understand the intended audience, so I’m not going to fault the movie for all this. It was a lot of fun to watch.Read More »

TV Series Review | Rick and Morty Season One

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Rick and Morty is a science fiction comedy cartoon series geared toward adults and produced by Adult Swim. Rick is a genius, alcoholic scientist who has moved back in with his daughter’s family, often recruiting his dopey, kind-hearted, and easily distressed grandson Morty to accompany him on his misadventures.

The origin of the series starts from a Back to the Future parody cartoon done by one of the creators Justin Roiland for film festival Channel 101. Rick and Morty are based on the two characters from this show, but from what I have seen the ties to being a Back to the Future parody are largely shaken, with the series instead taking on ideas from across much of popular science fiction. Their adventures take them across time and space — and even other universes — via Rick’s portal gun, juxtaposed with Morty’s dysfunctional family life.Read More »

Book Review | The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

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The Buried Giant is the seventh and latest novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, published on March 3, 2015, and it is the author’s first novel in a decade.  It follows Axl and Beatrice, an old Briton couple living in Britain after the Romans have “long since departed.” In this world falling into ruin nobody seems able to remember much of the distant, or even recent, past. The couple embark upon a journey together to find their long lost son, whom they scarcely remember. Their travels through this misty and forgetful world threatens their love for each other as it brings them closer to their veiled past.Read More »

Movie Review | Ant-Man

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Ant-Man, directed by Peyton Reed and starring Paul Rudd, is the latest Marvel Studios addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The story follows Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), an ex-con who is recruited by aged scientist and former Ant-Man Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) to wear a suit that permits its user to shrink to the size of an insect while increasing proportionate strength. Lang must pull of a heist to steal a replication of Pym’s technology, stopping it from falling into the wrong hands.Read More »

TV Series Review | Orange is the New Black Season Three

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This past week I finished watching season three of the Netflix original series Orange is the New Black, starring a cast that is at this point too widely relevant to write them all out. While typically I don’t want to review content without having done so from the beginning, I’ve written about the series previously, and I thought I’d make an exception this time with the latest season still fresh in my mind.Read More »

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

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 »