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Showing posts from April, 2017

Dimension 404

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Been watching Dimension 404, which is Hulu’s answer to Black Mirror by way of Freddie Wong’s company RocketJump. While it’s chocked full of a whole bunch of familiar and famous faces and features opening narration from Mark Hamil, in terms of writing and production it’s a very poor answer to Black Mirror . It lacks Black Mirror ’s cleverness, social commentary, pacing, and sense of foreboding. The second episode, for example, stars Patton Oswald and Modern Family ’s Sarah Hyland in what is supposed to be a scary parable of teenage conformity and instead ends up being dull, predictable, and more than a little cheesy. I was trying to think of a good comparison and then I saw someone say it’s like comparing Are You Afraid of the Dark? to The Twilight Zone and that really sums it up pretty well. 

Iron Fist: Final Thoughts & Next Seasons Hopes

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Finally finished the last episode of Iron Fist . Is it amazing? No, it’s not. But it’s not completely awful. There was the shadow of something really good there and there's still potential. When Iron Fist fires on all gears, it manages moments of real fun and feels like classic 80s-era Chuck Norris/Van Damme cheese. If you take a moment and really consider it, the showrunner and the writers had an unenviable task. Iron Fist is the last show before The Defenders so it had big shoes to fill. It also also had to tell its own story, shore-up connections to the other Netflix shows, and be sure it set-up some things that would be needed for The Defenders . Regardless of any of that though, there will undoubtedly be a second series of Iron Fist. Despite being panned by critics, it scored big numbers for Netflix. So here are my thoughts on how to make second season better: Pacing —beyond anything else, if they fix the pacing it will help the show immensely because the paci

Political Post: The Mother of All Bombs

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Yesterday the US dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in a combat operation. The tunnel complex being bombed in Afghanistan was financed by the CIA during the the 1980’s bankrolling of the mujahideen’s conflict against the Soviets—the very same conflict where Osama Bin Laden first cut his teeth. Since that conflict the complex has been used by everybody from drug-smugglers to ISIS. The foreign policy of the United States generates unrest and conflict with long-term consequences that it must later go and confront, creating a Möbius Strip of suffering and death that only benefits corporate interests and the unquenchable greed of the elites. Yesterday, however, also marked the 98th anniversary of Eugene V. Debs' imprisonment for sedition. Debs was a union organizer, founding member of the IWW, 4-time Socialist candidate for president, and a Hoosier. He was arrested and convicted for speaking out against the Wilson administration, World War I, and urging people to

Wisdom from POP MAGIC!

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