Chris Braak's Blog, page 22

Dramaturgery: The Avengers

In my last post, I suggested that I had a number of questions and problems with The Avengers, despite generally having a pretty good time while watching it.  I don’t know if other people, ordinary humans with their inferior movie-watching abilities, are capable of both simultaneously enjoying something and engaging with it critically, but I [...]

Chris versus the Movies: The Avengers

Look, I’m not trying to give anybody a hard time here.  The  Avengers was a fun movie, and I was committed to liking it.  Hulk smashed, Thor knocked some stuff around with his hammer, Captain America threw his shield at guys.  You know, the stuff that happens in The Avengers.  Every moment of the movie [...]

Avengers Ramp-up! ‘Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD’ is Also Hilariously Awful

This guy will not stop with the quipping, to the point where the movie could probably be retitled Nick Fury: Doesn’t Understand The Gravity Of The Situation.

The White Guy at the Dinner Party

So, I have been reading this website, Requires Only That You Hate.  It is very refreshing.  The woman who writes it is angry, and unapologetic, and has drawn the attention of a lot of different science fiction and fantasy writers who probably imagined that they were super-progressive and are off-put by how gleefully and viciously [...]

The ‘Wonder Woman’ pilot is hilariously awful (Part 2)

Anyway, don't worry about that, because the Hopeful Black Teen just died, and that means it's time for Diana to go into VENGEANCE MODE. So zip up the boots, power up the mini-jet and let's go bust down a secret lab!

The ‘Wonder Woman’ pilot is hilariously awful (Part 1)

And now, Wonder Woman AKA Diana Themyscira dons her street clothes and Clark Kent glasses to be Diana Prince, who goes home to have a “normal life,” which in this case means – I Am Not Making This Up – eating a bag of chips with her cat while watching The Notebook and moping over her breakup with Steve Trevor.

Braak’s Guide to Humanizing Your Characters

So, now you are a writer, great! You have probably made a lot of characters in your writing, and gone to classes, and done workshops, and read a bunch of books, you probably know about ten times more on this subject than I do. And yet here you are, reading what I, BRAAK!, have to [...]

Chris Versus the Movies: Cabin in the Woods

QUICK! I am writing down all of my thoughts about this before I have time to organize them. Spoilers follow the jump, DON’T READ THEM unless you have seen the movie. It is a pretty good movie, and it is worth seeing, and don’t find out anymore about it than that. 1) Obviously, this is [...]

Epic Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, and the Problem of Steampunk

I've been puzzling around this for a while, but have you ever noticed how many Epic Fantasies are quest narratives? I mean, a lot of it is couched in war, that's a pretty common feature of epic fantasies. But for the most part – I think maybe nine times out of ten – the Epic [...]

Why ‘Alcatraz’ Deserves a Second Season

Alcatraz wraps up its first and potentially only season, with a ton of unanswered questions, because people aren't generally trained on how to watch television these days. Which is to say, the rule is: “You gotta power through the first six episodes, because they're probably not gonna be all that good, but there's potential, which usually only gets reached in season 2, so please be patient.”