Medium Mashup

Category: Reviews

Reviews of Movies, TV, and Games

  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Review

    Batman_v_Superman

    The sequencing of scenes in a narrative is one of the most important and oft-overlooked elements of storytelling. As South Park’s Matt Stone and Trey Parker have talked about, one of the best ways to form an engaging narrative is to look at your consecutive scenes, and if the only way they’re linked is that one happens “and then” the next happens, rethink things so that they are linked with the words “therefore” or “but.” For a storyteller, it’s a simple way of reminding yourself that causality matters, and that if your story is just a series of things happening with no obvious relation, then, in the words of Trey Parker, “you’re fucked.”

    Of course, in complex narratives, it is not always possible to do this with every single scene transition, but it should always be a goal. The biggest problem in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s laundry list of issues is that it so seldom manages any sort of connection between its consecutive scenes. While you can look back at most of them and justify their necessity in the story, they’re so haphazardly thrown together that it becomes nigh-impossible to care about anything going on onscreen. It’s just scene after scene of shit happening, “and then” more shit happening for completely different reasons.

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  • 11.22.63 Review

    11.22.63

    One of the most notable things about  Hulu’s miniseries 11.22.63 is that, despite having never read the book that it is based on, I can still tell that it is exceptionally true to its source material. Author Stephen King has a very distinct narrative style, predicated on introducing a clever idea and then letting it take him wherever he deems the most interesting. His best stories live in the moment, guided only by the faint and distant light of a Macguffin device. The problem he tends to have is that, when it comes time to actually catch up with his Macguffin, he doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

    This is the case with 11.22.63. It’s a story about time travel with a unique set of “rules:” one can only go back to a particular date in 1960, whatever changes you make apply to the world when you return to the future, and re-entering the past wipes your previous changes. Also, when somebody tries to make changes to the past that will significantly alter the course of history, “the past,” a vaguely-defined mystical force, will fight back and try to stop it. It’s a fantastic and relatively unique take on time-travel, adding an almost video-game like element to the goal Jake Epping (James Franco) takes on: at any time, he can “wipe” his progress by returning to the future and starting over.

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  • The Walking Dead Season 6 Finale Review

    season-6The Walking Dead finale has set off a wave of fury across the internet, with fans swearing off (and at) the show and its writers. This isn’t the first time Scott Gimple and company have pissed off their fanbase; in a series fueled by tragedy and character deaths, fans are bound to get angry (or start riots) from time to time. However, for the second time this season, the fan outrage isn’t because of a character loss, but because the writers are lying or withholding information from their audience to boost ratings.

    Like with Glenn’s magical dumpster escape, the finale’s manipulation comes from the way that the camera is situated rather than anything organic. It would be one thing if we weren’t seeing Negan bash somebody’s skull in because the characters themselves didn’t see it, or because the episode ended before that moment. But the characters DO see it, and the scene transpires. The director and showrunner simply decide not to show us.

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  • Preacher Review

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    (This review is based on a pre-air screening of the Preacher pilot at Wondercon. The AMC series will premiere on May 22nd 2016)

    When’s the last time you saw a truly great pilot? They’re notoriously difficult to create. The writer is typically tasked with clearly defining the entire cast, setting up the show’s premise, and giving the audience an idea of what to expect on a week-to-week basis. On this last count, the pilot of AMC’s new series Preacher fails. Without reading the comic series on which it is based, it is nearly impossible to know what the show is really even about, let alone where it will be years down the road.

    But the truth is, after seeing the pilot, I don’t give a good goddamn where it plans to go. Preacher’s first episode is hilarious,  breathlessly paced, and far more concerned with character than plot or premise. The narrative has barely begun by the episode’s end, yet the pilot never gets dull for even a moment.

    So what’s it about? An invisible force from outer space is possessing preachers and (more…)

  • SOMA Review

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    It’s rare that a game comes along with a narrative hook as strong as SOMA’s. The story takes on the digitization of the human mind, and through the progression of the game and story, multiple complex quandaries about the nature of human identity are brought to light. Are we defined by our minds or our bodies? If an exact replica of our mind is duplicated in a new host, is it just as “real” as the original? Since all of the cells in our body are continually replaced over a seven year time period, does that mean that we’re essentially a completely different person than we were seven years ago?

    It’s a great basis for science fiction (one that I’ve wanted to write about for some time now), and too-often ignored in favor of more well-tread ground. To see such heady subjects in a video game at all is rare, but for the game to focus itself so intently on its narrative is even more commendable. Despite its weaknesses elsewhere, SOMA stays afloat due to its excellent writing and thought-provoking moral dilemmas.

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