30daysmichael

[30daysmichael]

Day 30 (February 21st)

This blog was fun while it lasted, but much like a good portion of Netflix’s original shows, it’s time to abruptly end it. I could talk about another show that I have a lot of investment in like Bojack Horseman or The Good Place, but I think it would be more appropriate for Netflix’s brand for my final post to cover a mediocre show. That show is going to be The Witcher.

This show (adapted from a book that is already adapted from a video game series) follows three characters and their mostly individual journeys. There’s Geralt, a grizzled witcher (which is this world’s nomenclature for monster hunter), Yennefer, a peasant girl turned sorceress, and Ciri, a displaced princess of a toppled kingdom. The show has an... interesting structure. It’s a bit of minor spoiler to say this, but each of the three character’s stories don’t occur at the same time. The events of Yennefer’s story happens first, Geralts happen next, and Ciri’s is in the present.

As for the quality of the show in general, it was just ok. There were moments that I liked, but I just found it hard to get invested in general. I think that the main problems were the characters. Geralt, in the games, didn’t really have one. He was essentially a grizzled mannequin for players to project their wish-fulfillment fantasies on while they killed monsters and romanced women. In the show, he has slightly more personality, but only because he now has the conviction that he won’t do evil to prevent evil. It’s better than nothing, but it’s still not much.

Ciri is a pretty standard character for her role. She’s thrust into an unforgiving world when her home is taken from her by invading forces and she now has to adapt to the horrors that keep befalling her. However, I honestly have a hard time remembering anything special about her character aside from the archetype that she fills, which is probably not a point of merit for the show.

Yennefer is the most interesting out of everyone. Her main character trait is that she is ambitious. She was essentially a servant to her own father, who sold her for 4 marks. She wants to prove to herself that she isn’t worth so little by trying to obtain “everything”. This is an interesting motivation, but it’s still handled somewhat badly. Between the episode where she graduates from her magical tutoring and the next time she appears, thirty years pass. In the former episode, she wanted power at the cost of something important to her. In the latter, she wants back what she lost. Even though there was a huge leap in time between these shifts in motivation, the audience only sees a difference of a few scenes. Because of this, she seems flighty and unsure of her own motivations despite her confident disposition. They should’ve had more time to flesh out her motivations instead of just saying “she changed her mind”. If you sound interested in this show, watch it, but don’t expect to be floored or anything.

[30daysmichael]

Day 29 (February 29th)

Time to talk about another netflix adaptation, although this time the source material isn’t a comic book or graphic novel, it’s a video game! I am going to discuss Castlevania.

The show starts when Dracula’s mortal wife is wrongly burned at the stake for being a witch. He then vows to exact revenge on all of humankind and in one year he will return to do so. Cut to a year later, and monsters have overrun most major cities. Now it’s up to Trevor Belmont, the last, disgraced descendant from a line of distinguished vampire hunters, Sypha Belnades, a mage from a wandering tribe of oral historians, and Alucard, Dracula’s half-mortal son, to kill Dracula and prevent humanity’s extinction.

I referred to this show as an adaptation, but it’s honestly only an adaptation in a loose sense. The characters are all borrowed from the games, but the extent of the plot was essentially “Dracula is evil, go kill him” and the rest your time was spent just getting to him and killing him. Not exactly a lot of content to work with. It might be kind of boring to structure the show around “levels” where the heroes fight monsters each episode just to get to Dracula, so they added an entirely new element that I don’t think any of the games had: Political drama. Not what I was expecting from this show to say the least, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Dracula wants to kill all the humans, but the other vampires want to keep them alive as livestock to feed on them. This creates tension between him and his generals, leading to issues within their ranks. In the games, you never see Dracula until the very end of the game and he is always in full control of his underlings. This offers a brand new perspective and an interesting take on the story.

I also want to highlight the voice acting in this show. It’s refreshingly real compared to other animated shows. Pretty much all voice acting has a level of “fakeness” to it. It’s easy to ignore it when you’re watching a show, but if you pay attention to their voices, you quickly realize that literally no one talks like this in real life. This show has a little bit of that, but the voices feel more authentic than in other animated shows. Season 3 is coming out soon, so now is a good time to start watching it if you’re interested. However, I would advised not to get too attached since I’m fully expecting netflix to cancel it before Season 4.

[30daysmichael]

Day 28 (February 19th)

Tonight, I thought that I would switch things up a bit. I usually talk about TV shows along with a few video games on occasion, but I want to talk about one of my favorite movies from recent years: Blade Runner 2049.

The movie takes place in the year 2049, and replicants (man-made humans created by corporations to be sold for labor) some replicants are rebelling against their owners. Blade Runners are tasked with killing these rebellious types. The main character, K, is one such Blade Runner, despite being a replicant himself. When he finds out that there is a child that was born to a replicant mother, K is determined to find out the truth behind this child, as well as solving the mystery behind his own existence.

I think what makes this film unique is that it’s one of the few cases of a movie franchise that was revived correctly. Most decades-old film properties are revived solely because there’s money to be made and they almost always feel like soulless, transparent husks being puppetted by the studios behind them. Independence day, Ghostbusters, and pretty much all of the live-action Disney remakes have this same quality to them. However, Blade Runner 2049 honestly did not give me this impression. It felt like it exists because there is a legitimate story that someone wanted to tell. 

The movie explores themes of what it means to be human and where your identity comes from, particularly as it pertains to replicants in this world. It’s a bit slow, but it’s very good at keeping your attention despite its pace. This movie also looks and sounds gorgeous. Every scene is stylized in such a unique way and the drawn-out synth noises in the soundtrack creates an unforgettable ambiance. It’s extremely well made. It’s a shame that this movie didn’t actually do that well upon release. Interestingly enough, this is a fate that the original movie shared. The original Blade Runner is considered a classic (although I have some significant problems with it), and I think this movie will be regarded in just as favorable, if not better, light in the future.

[30daysmichael]

Day 27 (February 18)

We’re in the final stretch of the assignment! Only a few more days left until its over. And what better time than now (or any other time) to talk about another Netflix original show adapted from a comic/graphic novel involving fantasy elements while being set in a fairly grounded reality. This time it’s the show Locke & Key.

The show starts out with, you guessed it, the death of a paternal figure in a family which prompts everyone to move locations to the place where the plot happens. I’m not joking, I don’t know why this keeps happening. Anyways, Nina Locke and her three children, Tyler, Kinsey, and brother Bode, all move to the Key House in Maine when their father is killed by one of his students. The Key House is an old family property which their father neglected to mention. When they get there, the begin to discover magical keys with powers that they thought impossible. However, Bode inadvertently frees an evil force who wants these keys along with something far greater.

On a quality scale between the October Faction adaptation and the Umbrella Academy adaptation, I would rank this show to be about halfway between them, probably a bit closer to the Umbrella Academy. On the surface, it seems like a family show, which it is in some regards. Any show with a lead 10-12 year old character is a family show on some level, otherwise, show runners would probably avoid using child actors. However, there will moments that are surprisingly dark. Alcoholism and murder are things that come up on occasion within this show. It’s something that I wasn’t really expecting, but it was a little refreshing to know that they weren’t willing to completely sterilize the story to appeal to a wider audience.

The special effects, though few and far between, are unexpectedly good for this show. There is a key that lets the characters enter the minds of people and they did a really good job with the production for these moments. In terms of the story itself, I have some issues. It’s best not to think to hard about everything, because you’re bound to find some plot holes. If you mind that sort of thing, then go ahead and check it out.

[30daysmichael]

Day 26 (February 17th)

Moving back over to television, I thought that it would be nice(ish) to talk about another netflix original show cut down before its time, Tuca & Bertie.

This show, which is animated by the same studio that made Bojack Horseman stars the titular characters, Tuca and Bertie. Following a typical “opposites-attract” dynamic, Tuca is bold, reckless, and free-spirited, while Bertie is reserved, thoughtful, and neurotic. As close friends, they try to navigate their way through adulthood while doing their best to solve each others problems.

This show is a comedy, but it’s not just a comedy.. Most episodes are light-hearted with lots of jokes, but just like Bojack Horseman, the jokes are oftentimes additions to the real message of the show. Tuca and Bertie are characters, not punchlines. They have struggles that are often funny, but the consequences of these struggles leave an impact. Tuca acts crazy a lot of the time, but she has a hard time figuring out her relationship with her family. It can be funny to watch Bertie freak out over little things, but she frequently has issues with sexism in her life. It’s a bit hard to believe that these kinds of things can be tackled in a comedy that looks like the picture above, but it does a good job at it. It’s a real shame that this show was cancelled by Netflix after only a single season. It’s possible that it will be picked up by somewhere else to continue its run, but it isn’t looking good for poor old Tuca and Bertie. This show gets a sold recommendation from me.

[30daysmichael]

Day 25 (February 16th)

For today’s blog, I’m stepping away from television for a moment and looking at video games again. In particular, I wanted to talk about Hades.

Despite the title, you don’t actually play as Hades, but rather his son, Zagreus. Your goal is to escape from the Underworld while Hades is constantly trying to thwart you by killing you. When you die, you end up all the way at your home within the palace of Hades and you have to try again. It sounds like a frustrating, almost Sisyphian task (Sisyphus is actually a character in the game), but it really isn’t. The game rewards you for failing since you keep most of your resources after each death so you can spend them on upgrades. Each upgrade gives you a better chance at getting to the end. It makes you feel like you’re getting better each time, which is very rewarding.

I also want to talk about the art in this game. It looks incredible. Seriously, everything about this game is super stylized and beautiful. The gods of Olympus all show up and grant you upgrades and abilities throughout your attempts and they all have fantastic and original designs that are unique from other interpretations that I’ve seen of greek mythology. This game is only about thirty dollars and it’s still in the process of being updated so there will be more content coming soon. It’s very much a worthwhile purchase.

[30daysmichael]

Day 24 (February 15th)

Moving right along with another TV show that I like, I am going to use today to talk about Santa Clarita Diet.

This is... kind of a weird show. It follows Joel and Sheila, a married couple/real-estate team, and their daughter, Abby. They live a perfectly normal life in the lovely suburbs of Santa Clarita when suddenly, Sheila violently becomes a zombie. She doesn’t become a mindless zombie though. She now has an urgent craving for human flesh and is much more outgoing and bold. Now, their family’s mission is to try to live a normal life while simultaneously looking for (deserving) victims to feed Sheila.

This show is, first and foremost, a comedy. A bit of a dark comedy, but not that dark. A lot of the humor revolves around how quickly characters come up with lies on the spot to cover their tracks. It also helps that the dialogue is very good. The best part of this show, though, is the chemistry between Joel and Sheila. I was mentioning earlier how October Faction failed because there was no chemistry between the characters. This show is the opposite of that. The chemistry between Joel and Sheila really makes the show work. You can tell that Sheila being a zombie is putting a bit of a strain on their relationship, but it’s honestly very sweet how they’re trying to make it work. 

The reason why I’m talking about this show is because I am saddened to say that it has been cancelled by netflix after 3 seasons. It’s honestly really disappointing because the show left off on a cliff hanger at the end of season 3 and now it will never resolve. This is becoming a regular occurrence on the platform, and it has happened to me more than once. The issue is that Netflix simply has too many shows to support. It’s found that releasing new shows is better for gaining viewership than keeping old shows running. This means that their new business model is to kill shows in their primes and know that disgruntled viewers will run to the next show to numb the sadness. It’s pretty sad to know that many shows that run on for more than 2 seasons will probably never be resolved.

[30daysmichael]

Day 23 (February 14th)

Happy Valentines day! October Faction left a bad taste in my mouth from yesterday, so I wanted to cover a show with very similar circumstances, yet is completely opposite in quality: The Umbrella Academy.

Just like October Faction, this show started out as a comic book before being picked up by Netflix. The show follows six super-powered children who were adopted by an eccentric billionaire to turn them into a super-powered team. This sounds great on paper, but it ends up emotionally damaging every one of them. The show starts when their billionaire guardian dies and everyone is brought to town for the funeral (this show is more similar to October Faction than I thought).

What makes this show so great is that I actually believe these characters. You feel like they have interesting personalities and character motivations. You understand why they all act the ways that they do and that makes you care about them. This show also has much better direction, which makes it fun to watch. This show is what October Faction probably could have been if it had been entrusted to better directors and editors. I definitely recommend this show to anyone who sounds interested.

[30daysmichael]

Day 22 (February 13th)

Continuing with more entertainment, today’s blog will talk about Netflix’s October Faction, or part of it at the very least. I’m going to open by saying that I don’t really like this show. I have watched about 5 and 1/2 episodes so far and I can’t say that I can really justify watching up to episode 10 if I’m not invested at this point.

The story follows a family where the mom and dad are monster hunters, unbeknownst to their kids. The story starts when they go back to the parent’s hometown when the dad’s father dies. Supernatural stuff ensues, etc. The main reason why I don’t really like this show so far comes down to the characters. I simply don’t like any of them. There really isn’t much chemistry between any of the family members, so it feels like they were all hired to live with each other rather than being an actual family. The husband and wife had a few moments of being interesting in the first episode, but that fades away quickly. There’s also way more high school drama than I wanted in a show about a monster killing family. I can understand why there would be this kind of stuff in Sabrina, but not this show.

One moment in particular that really bugged me involved the high school aspect of it. In one scene, the daughter asks her new friend to keep an important secret, to which the friend says not once, but twice, that her secret is safe. Literally two scenes later, in the very next scene that this character is shown, she is lightly pressured by another girl to give it up, to which she tells everything. It leads to the daughter being bullied by everyone and there is no build up or reasoning for why this girl just decided to throw her under the bus like that. It’s just lazy writing.

It’s a shame, though, because it seems like this story could’ve been told way better. I was looking up pictures for the netflix show and I found out that it was a comic first. Even if the comic was similar in quality to the show, at the very least the art is better to look at. The direction was pretty lifeless for most of what I saw, with a few exceptions. Overall though, I can’t recommend this one. Maybe go read the comic if the art looks cool.

[30daysmichael]

Day 21 (February 12th)

Seeing as how often I’ve been talking about entertainment and visual consumption lately, I may as well keep that ball rolling. I’ll spend tonight talking about my thoughts on Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. I’m also going to be intentionally vague as to avoid spoilers.

This show follows the teenage witch named Sabrina and her attempt to live a normal teenage life while also using her magic to thwart Satan. I’m going to come right out and say that I don’t think that this show is a masterpiece. It’s definitely not near the level of Bojack Horseman or The Good Place. However, that doesn’t mean it has no entertainment value. The show does a good job of moving things along. Some episodes feel a bit like filler, but it never really causes the show to drag. The production and set design are also pretty good. There are a few moments where the monsters look decidedly fake, but it doesn’t happen too often. I like how it frequently introduces different magical concepts and then (usually) does things with them. It’s also the only show that I’ve seen to have a trans character, so that’s cool.

My feelings are a mixed bag, though. I have some issues with Sabrina herself. Given that her coven worships Satan, they sometimes do some morally questionable stuff. Whenever something like this happens, though, she adopts this sense of righteousness that would normally be admirable, but in these scenarios, she completely ignores any consequences that she or others might suffer from doing this. It’s similar to how I feel about Daenerys in Game of Thrones. Either way, I think that this show is enjoyable in its own way and I plan on watching season 4 when it comes out.

[30daysmichael]

Day 20 (February 11th)

I know that this is technically a consumer blog, but I promised to share my finished comic on here eventually. Plus, it can be argued that by consuming a product, I was able to produce something of my own.

This comic was made for my digital drawing class, which I posted about a while back. I’m not really sure where the inspiration for this came from. All I know is that I was brainstorming ideas for my comic in class one day and I happened to come up with the design for the demon. I already had a decent idea of what the comic was going to be about, so I wanted the demon to be a sort of knowledgeable entity that would know how to help a kid with her math homework. My interpretation was that it’s skull would be stretched apart, but not in a gory way. It was more of a “his mind is unbound” kind of way. Water is also something that is occasionally associated with knowledge, too. The antlers were just to add some “mysticism” to its design. 

I have mixed feelings about how it turned out. On the one hand, I’m proud of the lighting. I’m really happy with the ways that the blues and the oranges interact with one another and I think that I made it work with three light sources at once (2 orange, 1 blue), especially in the first panel. On the other hand, I’m not so happy with how rough it is. This is definitely my own fault, though. I sketched out the last two panels on Thursday morning and then colored all four panels at night. It was late, I was tired, and I decided to swallow my pride and go to sleep. However, I really like the composition in the first panel. I think I might just go back and paint that panel as its own thing later. We’ll see.

[30daysmichael]

Day 19 (February 10th)

I’ve been mostly talking about Netflix lately in terms of my entertainment consumption, but I think I’ll switch things up a bit and talk about a Youtube channel that I like instead. The channel I’ll be talking about is called College Humor.

College Humor is a comedy website that was founded in 1999 as a place where videos, articles, and pictures were uploaded regularly. Eventually it branched out onto youtube where a lot of their sketches became very popular on the site. In 2019, videos regularly broke millions of views.

I personally find a lot of their sketches to be very entertaining. I’ll be sure to link a few of my favorite ones. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFKQ7GflRkk&t=1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5OHeGuXAxM

The CEO video stars a cast member named Brennan Lee Mulligan and he is definitely one of the best things on this channel. Almost single one of his skits are hilarious. He joined that cast only about 2 years ago, but it’s a shame that he won’t be able to show up in many more skits because the channel is shutting down. College Humor’s parent company cut its funding and almost everyone that worked on the channel has been let go. It’s sad because the decision came out of nowhere and the channel has been going on for so long. I’m hoping that everyone will be able to find new jobs in the future.

[30daysmichael]

Day 18 (February 9th)

I’m going to discuss some of my favorite art youtubers, in particular I want to talk about Marco Bucci and Mohammed Agbadi. I’ll leave links to both their channels right here:

Marco Bucci: https://www.youtube.com/user/marcobucci

Mohammed Agbadi: https://www.youtube.com/user/demohaful/videos

As I’ve talked about on this blog before, I am a digital artist (or at least I’m trying to be), but since digital painting is less popular than other mediums, my learning has been mostly self-guided. These two youtubers are exceptionally helpful resources when it comes to learning how to use digital softwares for painting.

First, there’s Marco Bucci. Bucci’s videos are less about painting digitally and more about the painting fundamentals while he works in a digital medium. The videos on his channel that I would most recommend is his “10 minutes to better painting” series. There are nine videos out so far and they are incredibly helpful. He covers lots of topics in ways that are easy to understand. Plus, at the end of the video he does a painting demonstration of the topic of the video. Seriously, if you want to learn how to paint at all, this guy is a great starting point. Hell, even if you aren’t planning on learning how to paint, I’d still encourage you to check this series out just because they’re fun to learn from.

The second artist I want to talk about is Mohammed Agbadi. This guy is best at explaining how to use techniques in Photoshop to achieve a desired effect (but some of them can be translated to other programs, too), as well as explaining how to use color and lighting. I like his videos a lot, but I feel he’s a bit worse at explaining things than Marco Bucci. For some of his videos, I can watch the whole thing but I have a bit of a hard time picking out the point he’s trying to say. I’d recommend his tutorial videos more than his videos with more “clickbaity” titles. They’re all still fun to watch, though, and I’ve found some digital artists I like because of this guy.

[30daysmichael]

Day 17 (February 8th)

Dang, the halfway point went by and I didn’t even realize it. Well, either way, it’s not that important. Today I want to talk about some more schoolwork. I’ll leave a link to some of my assignments right now.

https://pages.github.umn.edu/MCNAM389/exercises/Photo-Gallery/

https://pages.github.umn.edu/MCNAM389/exercises/Tables/

I am currently taking a web design course at the U of M and so far I’m enjoying it quite a bit. I don’t know why exactly, but I find coding (in small doses) to be kind of relaxing. I’m somewhat familiar to the subject since I took a web design class in high school, but this is way more convenient. The coding program I’m using for this class, Webstorm, is so much better than just working with a text document. This program notifies you when and where your code is broken so that you can fix it instantly. It also closes tags and autofills links to images and stuff in your other folders. It makes things so much easier and I wish I had it back in high school.

Obviously I still have a long way to go, (these websites aren’t the nicest looking things on the web), but I’m still relearning the methods. I don’t know how useful the actual coding knowledge will be when I’m a real graphic designer, but knowing more is always a good thing.

[30daysmichael]

Day 16 (February 7th)

I haven’t talked about food in a while, so I think I’ll do that today.

Every night, I like to have a cup of Chobani Greek yogurt. I feel like it’s the perfect before-sleep snack. Since it’s easier to fall asleep in a cold room than a warm one, eating something refrigerated feels right to me. My favorite kind the plain Vanilla type pictured here. I like the Strawberry and Raspberry ones too, but I’ve never cared for the chunks of fruit in the bottom of those containers. It just feels uncomfortable to be eating some creamy yogurt and feeling something soft brush up against your tongue. The vanilla kind is creamy all the way through, though, so I prefer it more.

Lately I’ve been trying to improve my diet. I’ve been making little changes so far. I’ve replaced all my white bread intake with whole wheat/whole grain stuff, I’ve been drinking more smoothies (made with fruit of course), and I’ve taken up eating Greek yogurt. Before I ate this stuff, I was eating raspberry yogurt mousse before bed. I thought it was fine until I looked at the sugar content and it was way higher than I thought. Seriously, sugar is everywhere in food, be careful with what you’re ingesting.

[30daysmichael]

Day 15 (February 6th)

Time to talk about another TV show! This time I’ll be discussing the Good Place.

 The Good Place is a comedy following Eleanor Shellstrop during her afterlife in the Good Place (AKA Heaven). However, she was not a good person during her life. Knowing that any moment she could be discovered to be a fraud and sent to the Bad place, she enlists Chidi, a professor of philosophy and ethics. With his help, she wants to become a better person and hopefully avoid an eternity of damnation.

While the main draw of this show is its comedy, it has a lot of substance just beneath the surface. Most episodes have a reference to some philosophical theory. One episode will talk about doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people and how this can be used to justify doing bad things, and another will discuss the trolley problem and all its variations. It even discusses the moral dilemma of how Eleanor is merely trying to be a good person because she believes that she will be able to stay in the Good Place and that this means that she will never be a good person. The story gets a bit haywire in the last two seasons, but it still remains good throughout its whole run time. I absolutely recommend this show to everyone who might be interested.

[30daysmichael]

Day 14 (February 5)

Recently, I finished that latest season of the Netflix show “You”, and I would like to talk about it for my daily blog entry. I will dip my toes into spoiler territory a little bit, but nothing that major will be spoiled.

The show follows Joe Goldberg, a New York bookseller, and his obsessive quest to earn the love of a girl named Beck, who he met in his shop. In the beginning, he starts by stalking her. He finds where she works, who her friends are, and even where she lives. After a bit of doing, he manages to get into a relationship with Beck and is willing to do anything in order to protect her.

The show actually pretty good. I saw the ad for this on Netflix and I expected it to be in the same vein as 13 reasons why, which I’ve heard lots of negative things about, so I avoided it. However, my roommate started watching it and I thought it looked pretty interesting, so I gave it a try. The dialogue is very good, which is a major plus in a show that’s focused on relationships. The direction is also nice, and every shot has a sort of romanticized look to it, which is probably intentional considering the subject matter. It’s a bit iffy on how you should feel about the main character, Joe, though. He’s a stalker, which is obviously bad, but in scenes where he’s being romantic with Beck, you’re expected to forget all about how he got to that point until one of his illicit doings comes back to bite him. It’s fine overall, but I worry that some people might get the idea that stalking somehow can pay off.