It’s Not About Godzilla X Kong

I am not a film critic, so take what I say with a grain of salt: I suppose there’s nothing inherently wrong with a movie review doubling as a blog post. Seeing as most if not all film criticism lives online (especially if it’s mean’t for the eyes of others) and blogs, which are defined …

Shepard plays the part

Can’t think of another game I’ve played this much (this was my fourth time thru ME1) yet have such a low opinion of. It hit me early on this time as I began assembling my team: I don’t and never really have liked any of the companions. In fact, I’m not sure I ever really …

No Escape Magazine

I’ve been featured in issue 1 of No Escape Magazine! Check the tweet for details. https://twitter.com/noescapevg/status/1552063078539448320?s=21&t=i-xnp6oCX-eA2wMy447-Iw

Stealth Action and Private Property

I recently read Alex Duncan’s essay, Savage Beasts, on how Skyrim denotes what spaces and objects are fair game for pillaging. It struck me I could not think of an open world game where you were not meant to see the outdoors as something to be conquered. The specific way Duncan comes at this is …

Yasuke: A Lonely Anime in a Supposed Black Boom

Yasuke is the kind of project that feels obvious in conception, but bleakly novel in reality. If someone had told me five years ago that a big-budget anime based on the real-life black samurai of 16th century Japan was going to be made by a lead on The Boondocks & star the stoner guy from …

They Live

For Unwinnable, my first published essay argues John Carpenter's cult classic is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. The film gave us ordinary heroes that better fit a story of self-radicalization and imagined a dystopia without the indulgence of sci-fi spectacle. https://unwinnable.com/2021/02/03/they-live-is-evergreen/

Games About Revolution Need the Revolutionary Spirit

Twenty years ago, smashing a corporate stranglehold on worker’s rights on a Martian colony was what revolution looked like in “Red Faction” and other video games. These days revolt is the backdrop to dystopian titles albeit with some added xenophobia such as the recent “Far Crys” or “Homefront”. Everything else has remained the same, with …

Thoughts: Toradora

This show sure is pretty.  That and melodramatic, sometimes cringe, often bittersweet, and occasionally deeply moving. I came to Toradora after finishing Monthly Girls Nozaki-Kun, hungry for more high school comedy and romantic tension. Hell, I was giddy for something with more posturing and arch writing after the former’s gentility.  I did this to myself.  …

What Lovecraft Country signals to white viewers

Supernatural TV series are having a moment. Often with the freedom to lean into graphic sex and violence, and bigger budgets afforded by streaming services and premium cable, there is a show for nearly every taste. Along with modestly successful campaigns like #Oscarssowhite, audiences have come to expect as much diversity in who these stories …

Thoughts: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions

My only school fight was over Pokemon cards. Middle school culture didn’t tolerate open displays of (at the time) niche interests. So, when two kids came over to harass my friend and me as we traded cards, two of us wound up wrestling on the ground. In elementary and middle schools I had dressed in …