Guerilla Game’s 2017 action-adventure game Horizon Zero Dawn tells a dual narrative. Story A is set in the game’s past, the later half of the 21st century, while Story B shows the events that happen to the player character, Aloy, in 3040. The two stories parallel each other: in each, a remarkable woman rallies disparate people to defeat some great threat to humanity. HZD‘s gameplay … Continue reading Stoic Perseverance and Horizon Zero Dawn
Humans all have a deeper longing to engage with music in a kind of dance where there is intention, anticipation and response, and a sort of push and pull motion. Recorded music can certainly help facilitate this, but unfortunately it can also dampen that longing. There is a certain language that we learn, whether subconsciously or through a more active process, that helps shape the … Continue reading Meet Me at Our Spot
“Our lived reality often conflicts with theological principles in ways that cannot be resolved easily, or even at all.” In the first season of Marvel’s Netflix show Daredevil, Matthew Murdock has a frank discussion with his priest about personal vocation. A lawyer by day and masked vigilante by night, Matthew walks a fine line of hypocrisy. He regularly steps outside the bounds of the justice … Continue reading Revisiting Daredevil
“The problem with escapism, then, does not lie in escapist stories. It lies in readers who try to build a home inside them.” Reeling from a particularly vicious head cold this midterm season, I set myself up in bed with Tylenol, Kleenex, popcorn, and a movie my roommate had recommended. As the opening credits began to play and the cold medication began to kick in, … Continue reading Escaping Escapism
Perhaps pagan, apparently agnostic, undeniably unchristian—whatever category you apply, Hozier’s music is fundamentally religious. Rather than divorcing faith from art, Andrew Hozier-Byrne, who performs under the stage name Hozier, brings religion to center stage. He wrestles with God in both of his albums, inviting his audience to actively contemplate the afterlife and critically analyze the nature of worship alongside him. His disdain for institutionalized Christianity, … Continue reading “Take Me to Church”: Hozier and Man’s Innate Religious Impulse
If you’ve had a conversation with me about music recently, it’s likely that Jacob Collier has come up. His most recent album, Djesse Vol. 3, has become somewhat of an obsession of mine—I haven’t been able to stop listening since its release this past August. The extent to which Jacob Collier has captured my imagination is rather odd, because his music is, well, rather odd. … Continue reading The Negative Space of Music: Jacob Collier’s Djesse Vol. 3
This famous novel written by Miguel de Cervantes is often presented as the story of a man who seems to have lost his mind after reading too many chivalric books and starting to see the world in a distorted way. The adjective “quixotic” is a synonym of “impossible”, “imaginary” or “unrealizable”; denoting the folly of the acts and thoughts of the novel’s protagonist: Don Quixote de … Continue reading Don Quixote: A tale of Sanity in Times of Madness
Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver first and foremost delivers on sheer entertainment value; it cannot help but be fun. The premise of a getaway driver who obsesses over music and synchronizes his driving and actions to the music delivers all the satisfaction of a well-choreographed dance while retaining all of the fun and intensity of high-speed car chases. With these two combined in such an incredibly … Continue reading Baby Driver and the Art of Letting Go
“Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light a such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” An old woman strikes a match and drops it on her kerosene-soaked books while the firemen stare in horror. This is the America promised us in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, where the printed book is banned because it … Continue reading The Flame of Civilization: Fahrenheit 451 and the Preservation of Western Culture
In a scene near the beginning of Lady Bird, the heroine argues with her mother on the drive home from visiting colleges. Frustrated by the mundanity of life in 2002 Sacramento, she protests, “I wish I could live through something.” The mother, irritated, replies, “Aren’t you?” The conversation swiftly devolves, ending with Lady Bird throwing herself out of the moving car in dramatic frustration. But … Continue reading Love and Attention: The Films of Greta Gerwig
Hillsdale Forum 