Medium Mashup

Author: Ross Miller

  • The Walking Dead and the Cycle of Death

    the-walking-dead_UCaVER(This post will contain spoilers from the most recent season of The Walking Dead. It is written under the assumption that the reader has some level of familiarity with the series)

    The Walking Dead wrapped up its most recent season on March 29th, and it was…decent. Not the best they’ve done, but far from the worst. The issue at the center of the season’s second half, whether or not Rick could acclimate to Alexandria and be trusted, was resolved. All of Rick’s “family” stood up for him, and Deanna gave Rick the order to kill Pete (the wife-beater). It was all in service of getting Rick into a leadership role at Alexandria, which should help them fight off their next threat (presumably the “wolves”) when the show returns.

    You wouldn’t hear that from the fan reaction online, though. The most common complaint seems to be that the finale was “boring,” or that “nothing happened.” Others are pointing out something Norman Reedus said prior to the episode airing, telling fans to “bring a tissue.” In retrospect, this was probably an intentional misdirect to make a particular scene (with Daryl and Aaron trapped in a car surrounded by walkers) more dramatic, but fans did not appreciate the added stakes.

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  • Going Clear Review

    going clearGoing Clear, a documentary by Alex Gibney about the Church of Scientology, aired on Sunday and has already made waves throughout Hollywood. Many celebrities, who know people involved in the church, have been tweeting openly about the effect the film had on them. Meanwhile, the Church has been trying to dissuade anybody from believing the “lies” that had been exposed. It is obvious that Going Clear has struck a chord with viewers, but far less obvious is how much of an effect it will ultimately have.

    In terms of the information presented in the documentary, Going Clear is not “news.” Everything exposed here has been reported on heavily by various newspapers and online media, and the documentary was based on the previously published book Going Clear by Lawrence Wright (which I’m currently in the middle of, and finding fascinating). Especially well-publicized has been the “Anonymous” attacks against Scientology, originally spurred by 4chan board members and now consisting of, well, anybody who wants to refer to themselves as “Anonymous.”

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  • Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Review

    hotline miami 2The original Hotline Miami was something of a sleeper hit: a top-down, 16-bit, hyper-violent, 80s-themed twitch-massacre-simulator with an awesome electronic soundtrack. The game looked simple but was packed with a variety of actions and tactics, all of which were necessary to tackle its twenty punishingly challenging “chapters.” Coupled with an insta-restart upon death, there was rarely any downtime for the player, allowing for each level to be a constant adrenaline rush. It was not until every single enemy was a corpse that you were given a moment of rest: the music would die abruptly, and you were left to navigate your way out of the level with nothing but an unsettling hum for audio and a violence-fueled guilt hangover.

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  • The Last Man on Earth Won’t Settle

    lastmanonearth(The following article contains spoilers for The Last Man on Earth, up through episode 

    The Last Man on Earth is currently halfway through its first season, which makes it an unusual candidate for my blog. Typically, I like to write about TV shows at the beginning or end of a season, but The Last Man on Earth is doing something that I’m not quite sure I’ve ever seen before. In short, it is a sitcom without a status quo.

    As I’ve stated in this blog before, the sitcom formula is built on stasis. Since the core of a “situation comedy” is a specific situation, it is difficult for characters to change or advance because that very change threatens the show’s premise. The Last Man on Earth, however, has been functioning since the pilot as a show where change IS the status quo. It’s been exciting to watch, gaining some ground from the “what will happen next?!” feeling that’s usually reserved for dramas, but also makes it very hard to get invested in the show’s future. We’re now halfway through the first season, and still have no idea what the show is about.

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  • Cinderella and the Importance of Complex Villains

    CINDERELLALast week, I posted a podcast I recorded with my friend Jason about the movie Patch Adams. In the film, Robin Williams plays a med school student who upsets the medical institution by caring about patients and clowning around the hospital. In the podcast, one of my biggest complaints was that the movie completely failed to make the “established” doctors into anything more than villainous straw men for Patch to knock over. When questioned as to why they hated Patch (a man who, given his outright illegal actions throughout much of the movie, they have every reason to hate), they would say absurd things about him sinking to the patients’ level, or being too happy.

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