I recently got back into the 90s Disney cartoon Gargoyles in a big way, and it made me sad for my sister’s generation. She’s twelve going on thirty or thirteen, depending on whether or not the menagerie of animals she keeps in her room woke her up too early. We’re just over a generation apart, and the kids’ television landscape couldn’t be more different. I watched Ren & Stimpy, Roundhouse, Rugrats, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and Clarissa Explains It All. None of them starred a tweener who was obsessed with fame. None of them were about being the most popular kids in school. Those statements are a lot harder to make about any four shows on Nick or Disney right now, and you can add Cartoon Network to the list when you’re talking about shows geared toward young girls.
Out of all the shows airing new episodes on the Disney channel, only three don’t have anything to do with being rich or famous. One of those three, Wizards of Waverly Place, almost doesn’t count because the Disney channel is ardently launching the actress playing the main character’s (Selena Gomez) singing career. Then there’s Nickelodeon, where both of its new live action shows are about teenagers becoming pop stars, VicTORIous, a pop star’s younger sister Tori goes to a performing art school where she feels like she doesn’t fit in, and Big Time Rush, a boy band that moves from Minnesota or Montana or Kansas or somewhere to Hollywood. Both networks still have a few animated series’ free of autotune, but not nearly as many as they did in the mid 90s. (more…)
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The fifth issue of Sky Pirates of Neo Terra came out last wednesday, and it ends this first mini series set in the crazy, epic fantasy world of Neo Terra. Here’s a great interview where Sean Megaw talks about what it was like creating this world. The idea was originally geared toward comic books, and then later developed for two seriously fun video games that will be coming out this April.
Here’s the beautiful cover art for Issue#5 which should inspire you to go out and buy your own copy right now!!
Working on this comic book, I learned so much about visual storytelling like how important it is to make the panel the panel on the upper left corner of the left page have as much impact as possible or how the size and placement of text can really make a joke pay off. The first comic I read was Y: The Last Man in my sophomore year of college. I came to the medium kind of late, but I’m completely obsessed with it now. I for one hope that there are more issues of Sky Pirates of Neo Terra to come and that I get to have a hand in continuing to make them ridiculously entertaining.
“Would you like the cancer?”
“What?”
“Would you like the can, sir?”
There were so many things that I enjoyed about this film. The cast was amazing, particularly Anna Kendrick as Natalie Keener. She was brilliant in the largely ignored Rocket Science – which if you haven’t seen it, go hunt it down right now – and it’s awesome seeing her in such a big film. I wish we’d seen even more of Ryan’s older sister Kara, played by Amy Morton who was breathtaking on stage in Tracy Lett’s August: Osage County. And I loved how everything looked and felt like airports and hotels but the most pristine, comfortable, beautifully designed airports and hotels you’ve ever seen.
Beyond the cast and the cinematography, there’s the story, and though I loved many of the scenes, most of dialogue, and certain twists in the narrative, I don’t know that I liked the story. I had trouble putting my finger on it until I stumbled upon this article on /Film.
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1 comment | posted in Film
When I first heard about this movie, I was so pissed because the title completely mislead me. I thought it was referring to a live action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender, one of my favorite television series’ of all time. And sure that movie is coming out, but literally every time I heard about this movie, it was like being lied to again and again.
Then I wanted to hate this movie for that stupid cross campaign they did with Coke that aired before every movie all summer. It was so cheesy and predicated on the idea that their are fanboys out there drinking soda who were already so excited about a movie that was shooting arrows at them from their computer screens.
Finally, I wanted to hate it because for the first two weeks it was in theaters everyone who saw it told me, it’s so pretty that the fact that the story was predictable and basically a retelling of Pocahontas, Fern Gully, and Dances with Wolves didn’t really matter.
But I saw it. I even paid the extra three bucks for 3D. And I liked it. Really liked it. It was a movie movie and it totally sucked me in. The two hour and forty minute running time that I had scoffed at flew by. Sure there were some wince-inducing lines and obvious plot twists, but I didn’t just ignore them because the film was so pretty. I let them go because the whole thing was so sincere. Every character believed everything they were saying and doing so intensely. There was no subtext because this was melodrama at its absolute best. And that was awesome.
Then James Cameron won the Golden Globe for Best Director. I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it, because creating an entire world was a huge achievement. (Side note: The CGI was jaw dropping, but how did they get Sam Worthington’s legs to look atrophied? That was crazy!) So kudos, Mr. Cameron. Then Avatar won the Golden Globe for Best Picture, and I found myself writing a post. This movie is going to win so many awards for all the things it did right, mainly the effects, the score, those colors! But I refuse to believe that if something is pretty enough, the strength of the narrative doesn’t matter. Film may be a visual medium, but it’s visual medium through which we tell stories.
So here are five things that James Cameron could have done differently to make the story worthy of the breathtaking Pandora. (more…)
I’ve started contributing to two amazing websites out here in the interwebs. In alphabetical order they are…
All Things Fangirl
Pop Culture Nerd
Over at the Nerd, I’ll be writing about what promises to be a short but sweet season of Big Love and with the Fangirls, I’ll gush about games, comics, and my Nintendo DS.
These two sites are awesome. Read them. The end.
Between the daily emails from Go Daddy reminding me to renew my hosting and the acidic guilt that’s eating away at the bottom of my stomach, it was time to get back to posting. As someone who habitually reads blogs instead of dusting the apartment, driving for destinations unknown with the top down, or I don’t know, writing, I’ve read more than my fair share of “Sorry I haven’t posted in a while but my apartment was beset by locusts, brimstone, and a number of other plagues…” So here goes: Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, I moved from Eastern Canada to Southern California, purchased my first car, wrote 50,000 words of a novel in a month, worked on two amazing issues of Sky Pirates of Neo Terra, finally beat Professor Layton and the Curious Village, flew to Florida to spend a nice long winter vacation with the family, parents, grandparents, school age siblings, and all, and read Under the Dome in less than a week. And rid my apartment of all those pesky locusts.
I also caught up on many movies I missed last year, and because it had been so long, I got to watch them on Dad’s finicky Blu-Ray. (Sony is kind of evil…) Now that I’m living in Los Angeles for the indefinite future, where movie theaters abound, avocados are almost always in season, and there are more opinions about the style, shape, tone, and quality of entertainment than there are cars on the road, I’m sure I will have plenty to write about in 2010. Hopefully, I haven’t lost all seventeen of you with my inconsiderate hiatus, but I will make it up to you in the twenty tweens!
Go see it. Now. Turn off your computer. Get in your car or a cab or on the subway, and get you and your loved ones to the nearest screening. Unless you’re reading this on your iPhone or Blackberry inside the theater waiting for the movie to start, you are doing something wrong. That is all.
