Yeah, as it is the article is kind of just recounting the basic cyberpunk themes that Akira has and then making a few timely political references.

Part of what I find funny about the Anderson backlash is so often the criticisms that people have of his characters are criticisms the narrative itself also has and expands upon; the point of the “quirks” of the Royal Tenenbaums is that they are all manifestations of deeper mental issues that they refuse to deal with…

You see, if it was a Disney tie-in, it would be Disney Corporate Media (TM) and therefore you aren’t allowed to like it, but its Beyonce so its probably going to be at least artistically interesting, so therefore Beyonce has to be subverting Disney from the INSIDE

I’ve sort of seen some of that, but what I’ve seen more of is a deepening of the criticism; it used to be that it was seen as good ideas in a perhaps too preachy package, but now the ideas are increasingly under fire too.

The thing is, the dance is no longer the important part; its the house, the ability to for 15 seconds watch people do a choreographed dance in a room that cost more than some people make in their entire lives and imagine that’s you. It’s effectively taking the old Disney Channel Sitcom idea of presenting fun “real”…

Not really, its more machinations of Gods and demigods and different factions trying to gain power. Something else that is kind of interesting about Percy Jackson is that there is not alot of 100% evil characters like Wizard Hitler, more often its either wronged people resorting to extremes or conflicts of ideology or…

A huge benefit to the more self-contained comics strategy is that the interconnectedness of current superhero comics narrative has become a massive drain on quality as writers are forced to crowbar in references and plot details from larger editorial mandates into their stories, and be prepared to put their story on…

Arguably in retrospect Eva’s greatest issue is that it made its mecha exterior too enticing and interesting. Eva, especially by the end, is more of a rumination on depression and human connection that occasionally giant robots are in rather than a giant robot show that has some headier themes. I’d go so far as to…

Part of what the face camera stuff sounds like to me is an editor reviewing all of the footage, finding nothing of consequence, and desperately trying to shape what they have into Something you can refer to as a movie. The review reads like the documentarians wanted to have a Silence of the Lambs type conversation,…

It sounds like the documentarians did the best with a bum hand; they probably planned for this to be a peek into an off-kilter mind, twisted in ways that scare us but close enough to make us terrified, and other ad copy, only to find that Sagawa is kind of just A Guy. A thing alot of people forget is that psychopaths…

My issue with the realism argument is always that if I want realism, I’ll read a book on the topic or listen to an expert, not watch a cartoon horse act it out. I come to fiction because its not real.

I hesitate to use the word “shell game”, but its the word that keeps coming to mind after finishing this season. I love this show but its increasingly obvious that theres no actual plan or point to the series as a whole, and every season is just supposed to be a sandbox for the writers to mess around in. Bojack gets…

There’s also an element that for as much as we love the “tortured geniuses” narrative, not all asshole artists are great and not all great asshole artists are assholes for the same reason their art ends up great. There are Stanley Kubricks who treat their actors like shit because they have a very specific vision that…

That’s very true, and I also think theres an increasing anger among younger people that we aren’t getting new stories. It was one thing when original stuff was being made and then niche stuff traded in nostalgia, but it increasingly seems like the majority of movie money is going to nostalgia products but leave…

That’s very true, and I also think theres an increasing anger among younger people that we aren’t getting new stories. It was one thing when original stuff was being made and the niche stuff traded in nostalgia, but it increasingly seems like the majority of movie money is going to nostalgia products that leave…

I had not read this before, thank you!

A large part of the backlash to references I feel is the recontextualization of nostalgia and nerdom post-2016 (that sounds pretentious). You can draw a very clear line between the Nerd Power movement that RPO was a part of and online movements like Gamergate, and then another clear line between Gamergate and the…

I feel like the big issue with the FOC stuff that WHM talks about is that FOC has a bad tendency to be a good article reevaluating a piece of media wrapped up with an air of “if you disagree you just don’t get it, man”. If it just presented its points and let the reader decide they would be less grating

I understand and agree, but that’s also a bit of a false dichotomy; you can actually go into the issues with the militia movement without going full shock value. The idea that you have to go to that extreme if you want to say anything is part of why it seems mush-mouthed I suspect

I agree that the treatment of Skyler was uncomfortable, but I feel like the series was completely on her side. By the end of it I kind of read Breaking Bad as a deconstruction of a male power transformation fantasy; its about a “weak”, “trodden-on” man who “picks himself up by his bootstraps” and “takes life by the…