Chris Braak's Blog, page 13

Oh My: The ‘Batman Vs. Superman’ Script Is Also Terrible

I'm about to show you the craziest damn part of this script, which I will simply call, “Lex Luthor: Evil Fingernail Brain Surgeon.”

Dramaturgery: Star Trek Into Darkness

There’s really no colon there, huh?  So it’s not like, “Into Darkness is a Story of Star Trek,” it’s like, “darkness is where my trek through the stars is taking me.”  Okay, man, sure. I just watched this movie, and it made me think of this article I read about how snack companies hired a […]

10 Questions about ‘Iron Man 3′

What I'm saying is, there is now a very good chance that M.O.D.O.K. will make it to the big screen before Wonder Woman.

Computational Screenwriting

So, I want to talk about this profile of Worldwide Motion Picture Group, and their scientific process (“scientific” process) of evaluating the statistical likelihood of success for a screenplay. Here is an AVClub article about them, and about their founder, Vincent Bruzzesse. This is actually very exciting for me! I like the idea of behavioral [...]

10 Ways ‘Injustice: Gods Among Us’ is Dumb As Hell…

You don’t automatically win just because you’ve selected Batman, which to me is a glaring and confusing flaw, but I suppose that might be more my problem than the game’s.

New Play Festivals are Eating Their Young

Shakespeare was supposed to have written all of his plays in one draft, each of them bursting perfectly formed into the world like the goddess Athena from the skull of Zeus. I don’t currently know any writers who can do that, but the model that playwrights have access to is either apathetic, disingenuous or expects [...]

Dramaturgery: Oblivion

I saw Oblivion the other day, and will now write about it. This isn’t strictly a review, and it isn’t strictly dramaturgery, but I will review it a little bit, and I will also do dramaturgery on it, so stick around if you like either of those things. SPOILERS FOLLOW. Serious spoilers, don’t read ahead [...]

Thoughts on Luna Theater’s “Future Fest”

Yesterday, I saw “Future Fest”, which is a Luna Theater production of short “science fiction plays”, themed around time travel (I guess, kind of?), which whole thing is part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. I haven’t been doing a lot of reviews of theater lately, for a lot of reasons, but I [...]

Why Don’t We Ask Ourselves Why?

Hello! Please welcome this post by guest contributor Cara Blouin.  –ed Theater, Dan Hodge muses, is an impermanent art form, and he stays up nights wondering why he labors so long to produce something so temporary. He is directing Timon of Athens for PAC at Broad Street now and it is probably wonderful- I’ll be [...]

10 Things ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 3 Has Taught Us

Michonne’s sword operates on three principles: the blade is made out of adamantium; zombie flesh and bone is about the consistency of soft butter; and upper body strength doesn’t enter into it at all.