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 »

Movie Review | Avengers: Age of Ultron

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Avengers: Age of Ultron, directed by Joss Whedon, is the latest entry on the big screen for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). This is the second Avengers film, following the team of Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Wanting to create a world where their team is no longer necessary, Iron Man aka Tony Stark creates Ultron (James Spader), an artificial intelligence with the capacity to protect the world from another alien invasion (as seen in the first Avengers film). Ultron becomes too advanced too quickly, however, and only sees destruction as a viable option for “peace in our time.”Read More »

TV Series Review | Daredevil Season One

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MattMurdock

This past week I finished watching through season one of Daredevil, the Netflix series produced by Marvel Television. The series expands upon the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), following Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), an attorney in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City. Blinded as a child, Murdock developed extrasensory abilities that allow him to perform extraordinary feats despite his lack of sight. Fed up with how corrupt and dangerous his city can be, he became a masked vigilante to fight for justice when the system isn’t enough.Read More »

Comic Book Review | Seconds by Bryan Lee O’Malley

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Seconds is a 2014 graphic novel by Bryan Lee O’Malley, well known as the author of the Scott Pilgrim series. The story follows Katie, a young woman in a transitional stage in her life. She is a talented chef who has worked at a successful restaurant —Seconds — for the past four years. Wanting to take her talents to greater heights, she currently works toward opening and co-owning her own restaurant. One night she is visited by a strange girl who gifts her the opportunity, in the form of a magic mushroom, to right her mistakes. As things start to fall apart on a particularly bad day Katie takes advantage of this gift, starting her down a path to not only make her life better, but perfect — disregarding the rules in the process.Read More »

Reading Epics: The Odyssey by Homer

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Very recently I finished reading Homer’s The Odyssey in its entirety for the first time. This is particularly significant for me because while minored in classical studies in university and learned a lot about the story of The Odyssey, I never actually read the entire text. I’ve made it a personal mission to read epics like these, having started with The Iliad, which I finished reading at the end of 2013.Read More »