The prevailing piece of advice for writers struggling to portray well developed characters is often: write a Good Character (which, let’s face it, tends to translate as ‘write how you would for a man’) and then switch the pronouns around. Legend has it that this is how we […]
Once upon a time there was an unlucky girl, starring in a very unlucky game called Rule of Rose. It was passed on by several publishers while trying to find homes outside its native country, brewed in a controversy of accused lolicon content that was quite untrue, and […]
Tusk is a monster movie in all sorts of ways, cobbling together tones and plot elements and influences into a creature that demands attention even as it occasionally rips at the seams. Reviewers were quite polarized into adoration and loathing, with a few hearty souls lingering near the […]
Or as I like to call it, “the better (far better, so much superior) Cabin in the Woods.” Yeah, that’s right. And I’m not taking it back, either Made on a shoestring budget, released in 2006 to the festival circuit and then quietly shuffled into a small DVD release, […]
If you didn’t die from the wafting fumes of smugness that are inevitable in every Joss Whedon script (don’t give me that look, I’m following him too), you probably noticed that Cabin in the Woods was 2011’s delightful, gory gift to the world (I thought I should make […]
When I think of Deadman Wonderland I often picture watching a gifted, enthralling sprinter who’s had his legs torn free at the knees, crawling toward a finish line we increasingly realize he will bleed out before reaching (an inability to stop watching may vary from person to person). […]
There came a moment in the new Godzilla film where, as I watched a group of nearly identical soldiers (new characters as far as I was concerned) walking down a train track, I realized that the protagonist had been there all along without my noticing. And even then, […]
“Of course he bleeds green and flies off in a giant robot! What else were you expecting?” I spent ages trying to think of how to sum up Green vs. Red, the 2008 OVA meant to celebrate 20 years of Lupin III TV specials. I tried out […]
Very few things are so difficult as a satisfying conclusion – share too little and your audience feels as though their investment hasn’t paid off, but give them too much and you run the risk of strangling the agency of the imagination (the infamous “19 years later” epilogue). If […]
We’ve collecitvely that Pupa is thus far a hideous disappointment, right? I know I was a bit crushed to find that the alleged “dark and disturbing gorefest” translates out to “four minutes of poorly exposited insanity, an exploding dog, and a giant censorship bar.” But then, I knew […]
