This website is a work-in-progress space to post writing and creative works done by myself, unless credited otherwise. I hope to add images and expand the essays with more thoughts and information as time allows. They are currently offered as a mix of HTML-formatted essay pages and downloadable .doc files (use either MS Word or Open Office), until I have time to go back and format all of them to HTML.
ACADEMIC ESSAYS
The Ghetto as a Playground: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the Urban Action/Adventure Game
Of all the essays, this is probably the one I am the most proud of. Also available in .doc form.
Counter-Terrorvision: A Look at 24 as Post-9/11 Propaganda
This critical essay with a dash of the personal was written for J. Hoberman's Seminar on Current Cinema class before the topic of 24 and torture was a popular one. Also available in .doc form.
Afro-centric Katrina Discourse in Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke and Juvenile's Get Ya Hustle On
The Unappreciated Genius of Watermelon Man, Melvin Van Peeble's Only Studio Film
Thoughts on Videodrome in Regards to 1980's American Film and Politics
Note: Like White Chicks, I seem to be drawn to discussing Cronenberg and Videodrome, in particular. One of these essays was a Mercer Street Notable Essay of 2005... but that's not this one. If I can find that one on the hard drive somewhere here, I'll post that too!
REVIEWS
I was Editor-in-Chief of Gamenikki.com for four years (starting in 2001) and Cinenikki.com for two years (starting around 2003). Since then, I've switched hosting services twice, laptops thrice and learned one valuable lesson: back everything up on an external hard drive! I've lost the majority of the hundreds of reviews I wrote and edited during this period, but a few trace remains... remain. Here are two relatively recent reviews written as a freelance contributor for the new Editor-in-Chief (former Assistant Editor) Josh Allen:
Rainbow Six: Lockdown (Gamecube)
Ivan's Childhood: Criterion Collection DVD (New! A review I put together for the upcoming launch of my personal film site. This review is very similar in format to the reviews created for Cinenikki--see below.)
Although Cinenikki's domain name has expired, so that it's now just another one of those obnoxious Internet search engine portals, hints of its existence can still be found. The Criterion Collection features snippets of my reviews on the product pages for La Strada, Early Summer, and Contempt. Fred Camper, the foremost expert on Stan Brakhage, links to my now-dormant Cinenikki review of the Brakhage DVD compilation on his personal website. He posted the link without additional comment, which--given his quibbles with the intelligence of many other reviewers--I take as a compliment.
Oh, and all that Cinenikki/Gamenikki writing/editing? I did that in high school, and no kid that age should have to review Kristin Lavransdatter, let me tell you! So please understand that I feel like my skills have progressed quite a bit since then, as I think the essays posted in the top section will attest to. Here's something else I did in high school, though: as Entertainment Editor at my high school newspaper, I was ranked the top Entertainment-section writer in the state of Nebraska at the 2004 High School Journalism Conference.
SHORT FILMS
Together with frequent collaborator Jeff Sisson, I have made many short films over the past several years. Our production style has remained constant: impoverished enough as it is, we do not spend any money on any film (this probably shows), we also rarely work from scripts, instead substituting improv performance based around seemingly-simple concepts. I've posted a few examples below; they were edited using Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro and iMovie, depending on the year, and shot using a variety of HD cameras. I will post the films as I manage to find the backup files.
Sliders (2004, MP4 format, Quicktime required)
A young man discovers simple pleasure amongst the snow. The pleasure... of sliding!
Whale Balls (2006, MP4 format, QuickTime required)
Whale Balls (2006, YouTube link)
In this, our magnum opus, we mix two ridiculous CNN stories (beached whale rescued vs. THC-laced gumballs discovered in schools) to critique the current state of mainstream American journalism. Critique with laughter! A detective on Whale Vice Squad (played by myself) goes undercover to bust a drug smuggling ring that smuggles drugs in the bellies of innocent-looking beached whales. He also explains various slang terms for these new whale-fed drugs and crams as many bad Moby Dick references as possible into a few brief minutes. For a film with no script, the jokes in this one aren't bad at all.
COMING SOON: (or as soon as I can find them)
Racism and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (UPDATE: Found! See top essay!)
I have defended the genius of the film White Chicks--twice!
Who's the foremost expert on Will Smith? With three essays on him, it could well be me...
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Please enjoy the writings and distribute them to others if you find them interesting. Please do not change the writings or submit them as your own work to some class... I doubt professors really want to read linguistic theories on Three Six Mafia, anyway.