Category: 2017

Posted on in 2017, Comics, Current Writing, Essays, Film

How the MCU Made Captain America Interesting

Who’s strong and brave here to save the American Way?

So, my favourite MCU movie is Captain America: The First Avenger. It’s certainly not the most beloved of the MCU movies amongst the general population (often being overshadowed by its sequel The Winter Soldier, and its direct successor in the MCU, The Avengers), but I wanted to look back and admire its successes. In fact, I reckon the successes of the first Captain America film are a microcosm of the successes of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. So, without further ado, let’s look at Captain America.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays, Gaming

The Indie Revolution

In the words of the Violent Femmes, You won’t fool the children of the revolution.

So, I talk about PC gaming occasionally on this website. I do this in an attempt to demystify it. There is a bit of mystique on spending a minimum of $1000 on a computer just for computer games. I’ve known cars that cost that much (mind you, the computer will last longer with less maintenance than a $1000 car). Personally, I’ve always justified my computer over a console for several reasons ( a computer can do more functionally than a console, storage space is fairly easy to expand, it’s a mostly centralised place for all my games). Not to shame anyone who prefers and uses a console, there’s merit in the simplicity of the console (no-one has had to configure the display on a console, or edit the ini files or such on a console). However, this paragraph of parentheticals is distracting from the initial point I was trying to make.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays, TV

Arrow’s Problem is Not Felicity

(Author’s Note: Some minor spoilers for Season Four and Season One of Arrow)

So, Valentine’s Day was a recent thing. In honour of the day that’s ostensibly all about love, I thought I’d talk about fictional character’s relationships. With that said, Arrow.

So, Arrow is a show on the CW following the exploits of Oliver Queen who moonlights as the Green Arrow. The show is in its fifth season this year and has spawned a whole mini TV universe. It is perhaps the most successful screen adaptation of the DC Universe in the current age. It’s good. TV is in some ways the perfect medium for comics. Movies can only periodically check up on heroes so they can have a habit of rapidly developing relationships between movies (see: Bruce and Natasha in Age of Ultron) or characters can stagnate (see: nearly every Batman movie ever).

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays, Film

Why Deadpool Was Snubbed for the Oscars (and It’s Not What You Think)

So recently Ryan Reynolds was campaigning for Deadpool to win an Oscar. There was nothing explicitly forbidding the film from winning. It was eligible enough but the prevailing opinion was that Deadpool wasn’t the sort of movie that’s nominated for an Oscar. Which is true, it shouldn’t be true, but it is. Now, I’m going to begin by explaining why Deadpool was unlikely to be nominated for what it was. Then I’ll get to the reason I think it didn’t get the nomination.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays

What Even Is Are a Millennials?

What are millennials?

We just don’t know. Countless old opinion writers have tried to categorise them. I thought I saw one once. I don’t know. It might have been a smartphone. You know those millennials, always on their phones. What an insightful and original thought. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. My name is Zach Eastwood, and I’m a millennial. I know, don’t act too shocked. The kid in his bedroom writing about how Marvel is so great and DC isn’t doing so crash hot. He’s a millennial? Yes, the true is out.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays, Film, TV

The Pop Culture Things I’m Grateful For

I’m tired.

I’m tired of being angry all the time. I want to be positive. I’ve talked a lot of shit about stuff on this website (mostly the DCEU) but I do actually enjoy stuff. I like quite a lot of stuff. I’m not some bitter, pop culture hater. I talk about this stuff because I love it. I admonish DC out of love. They can be better. I know they can. I try and write about the problems to highlight continuing bad trends in writing that hopefully, future writers avoid. This week, however, I’m not going to flagellate the sinners of pop culture. Time to reward the good.

(By no means a comprehensive list, just a collection of stuff I love. I do have to thank my partner Zoe for actually introducing me to half the stuff on this list, my tastes would be kind of boring without her.)

 

Movies

What We Do in the Shadows – Recently, when introducing a friend to this movie I described it as “a movie where nothing seems to happen until the movie ends and then you realise, yeah, something did happen”. What We Do in the Shadows is a 2014 mockumentary about vampires. Apparently, this is by at least some of the same people as Flight of the Conchords. So. if you liked that, this will be right up your alley.

The movie concerns three vampires who live in a share house is suburban Wellington. It’s exactly what that sounds like. It looks at and parodies every single vampire trope. It’s a movie that anyone can enjoy but have references to Dracula, Nosferatu, and other vampire fare. The movie has this kitschy charm to it and it’s worth the watch one night with friends.

Probably the best comparison would be to the Thor short that was released after Civil War except, you know, with vampires instead of a Norse God.

The film was directed by Jemaine Clement (who recently played Tamatoa in Moana) and Taika Waititi (the director behind Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and this year’s Thor Ragnarok).

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays, Film, TV

Not My Superman 2: Dawn of Truth, Justice and the American Way

Come on DC, it’s not that friggin hard.

So, in my last post about Superman, I talked about how to fix Superman by fixing his villains. Essentially, I was examining the plot of potential future Superman movies. From this, I sort of made the assumption that if the villain and the conflict coalesced into a coherent plot then Superman would follow via a basic fucking understanding of the character that setting up the elements of a story would allow. I realise that that’s giving DC and Warner Brothers a little too much credit.

So, let’s be really simple to the studio that still trusts Zack Snyder with their cinematic universe for some reason. DC, like the Flash before him, you’ve already created a great adaptation of the character. Your perfect Superman story is in Supergirl (I’ve been binging the series and have enjoyed it immensely). Mild spoilers for Season 1 of Supergirl incoming.

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays, Gaming

I Have Some Very Specific Words for EA

The words are fuck and you. Seriously, where the hell do you get off?

I feel like this requires some context. So, for those who are unaware. Electronic Arts, EA for short, is a games publishing company. They are such a shitbag of a company that they have repeatedly been named one of the worst companies in America by a poll conducted on a consumer affairs website. Anyway, EA is the money behind Battlefield, Battlefront, Titanfall, Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge, NBA 2K, the FIFA series of games, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Simcity, and most importantly for this discussion The Sims. They’re also the idiots behind game distribution platform Origin. So why do they suck?

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Posted on in 2017, Current Writing, Essays

Art is Political

So, it’s no secret that in my last piece on Superman, that I had many not so subtle digs at the upcoming President-Elect of the United States. I’ve also been critical of the P-E on my Twitter, which is connected with this whole enterprise. Also, all of my current writing available for public consumption is connected to my real-life name, and all this is connected to my social media. When crafting a public persona for your art, the fear is that you will retweet the wrong thing, say the wrong thing in social media. Fears that your career might end before it’s even begun. So, let’s talk about art and politics.

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Posted on in 2017, Comics, Current Writing, Essays, Film

Not My Superman

(Author’s Note: I’ve only just started watching Supergirl. Will be minimal references to it in this piece)

Superman is my favourite superhero. Not a lot of people understand that. When I talk about Superman people tend to think of Henry Cavill’s turn as Superman, maybe they think of Justice League Animated, rarely they think of Christopher Reeve (blame my generation, millennials ruined Superman. What a title for a curmudgeonly click bait article). Anyway, it’s easy to see how Superman might not have aged well in the public consciousness. Stories come about when characters struggle and Superman, with his bizarre and lengthy list of powers suggest a limitless power. How could someone like that struggle?

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