Chris Braak's Blog, page 25
February 9, 2012
DC's Nielsen Survey
So, remember that DC market research survey I talked about a while ago? Well, the results are in, and they're over here. Quelle surprise, DC has not significantly altered its demographic in any way, just like everyone said they weren't going to by doing basically exactly the same thing that they've always done. Moreover, no [...]
February 8, 2012
Before Watchmen: WHAT BRAAK! HAS TO SAY!
I have to write this, I guess, because Holland called his article "Holland's take", and that automatically implies that I'm going to have some different kind of a take. And I guess I kind of do. Not completely different, but I do think the position of "Just Don't Buy It" skirts perilously close with "Everyone [...]
'Before Watchmen' – Holland's Take
If you've got any misgivings about the project – either because Moore and Gibbons got contractually screwed 25 years ago (they did), or because you think the story was pretty well completed the first time (it was), or because you think J. Michael Straczynski is kind of a dick (he kind of is) – then your course of action is astonishingly simple: DON'T. BUY. IT.
February 7, 2012
This Week in Product Placement
Sometimes I wonder if TV's just getting a little better at not cramming product placement quite so obviously as it felt like last year. Though that might just be because now that 24's not extolling the astonishing severed-thumb-print-scanning functions of the average Sprint phone, I'm just not getting as much of it in a given [...]
January 30, 2012
Seven Swords of Shaolin
Seven Swords of Shaolin is an epic, kung fu RPG for the…uh, let's say the XBox and the PS3. It comes with a "sword" — a plastic weapon that has a rumble pack and a bunch of gyroscopes and what not to keep track of its position. In the game, you take the part of [...]
January 20, 2012
What the Cyber-Terrorists Want
Present the Elders of the Internet with an appeasement gift of unfettered, non-grainy, well-lit access to 20-year-old Angelina Jolie's boobs, and you may yet save all your government websites from complete destruction.
January 19, 2012
Scattered Thoughts on 'Alcatraz'
Reviews on the new J.J. Abrams/whoever-else-ends-up-being-in-charge-of-the-story series Alcatraz have been mixed-to-positive. Most have commented on its procedural structure, as though that's a bad thing in and of itself, but by and large the reviews feel like an unjustified pre-judgment on the show now that Lost is done with.
January 12, 2012
The Theology of (Certain) Quarterbacks
A friend of mine put this image up on Facebook: I thought it was kind of funny, you know, and then someone responded with "So, we should just pray for world peace and nothing else?" in a way that seemed to me (purely delusory, of course, since there's no way to establish tone or feeling [...]
January 11, 2012
Cabal: A New Television Series
Jamie Dwyer has kept her sister, Shoshannah, hidden from the rest of their family for more than ten years. But when the family's destructive supernatural legacy invades the life they've built for themselves, Jamie has no choice but to turn to back to her family and embroil her sister in their milennia-long secret war. If [...]
January 9, 2012
Ghost Protocol: The Best Mission Impossible Since That Last One You Forgot About
Remember how after The Incredibles came out, the people making Fantastic Four had to scramble to rewrite their third act because Brad Bird had basically trumped everything they'd been doing?* Well, it turns out by making Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, he's basically screwed the next James Bond movie. Sorry, Skyfall, you're gonna have to make [...]
