The Different "Ages" of Blockbusters

  Recently I was revisiting all of my different movie lists (making little tweaks here and there and whatnot), and while doing so, I stumbled upon an interesting epiphany:

When Star Wars was first released in 1977, it basically invented the blockbuster genre, paving the way for a 1980’s movie landscape filled “larger than life” films along the lines of E.T., Blade Runner, Alien and Aliens, Legend, The Terminator, and so on. This was a stark contrast to the decade before, as the 1970’s was mostly known for “down to earth” films such as The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Network, American Grafitti, etc. I suppose the 1960’s could be seen as a sort of “proto” age for blockbusters, considering how James Bond and westerns practically dominated that decade. This itself was probably a response to the 1950’s being rather “dark” (Rear Window, On the Waterfront, Twelve Angry Men, etc.).

The 1990’s saw another pendulum swing back towards “darker, counter-culture” stuff, such as Pulp Fiction, Clerks, El Mariachi, The Shawshank Redemption, Fight Club, and so on. This led to a swing back towards “bright” stuff in the 2000’s, but rather than a return to blockbusters, this decade was more-so dominated by an influx of comedies (be it rom-coms, parodies, etc.). Don’t get me wrong, I know this is also the decade that brought us The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Star Wars prequels. But outside of Potter, the rest of those franchises only carried a few films each, and therefore don’t really represent what the movie landscape as a whole felt like in the 2000’s…

But then we get to the 2010’s, and here, we finally see a return to something more along the lines of what the 1980’s seem to have felt like (I say “seem” cause I wasn’t born in the 80’s yet, to be fair, so I can only go off of historical reflection). The MCU, the DCEU, and Disney’s rebooted Star Wars franchise were all in full-swing, by this point, but Marvel and Star Wars both reached culminations in 2019, while the DCEU eventually fizzled out altogether. This brings us now to the 2020’s, where a pandemic and two strikes have basically left the theater-going industry in shambles…

So, to recap: I basically consider the 1980’s to be “the golden age of blockbusters,” and the 2010’s to be “the silver age.” But now here’s the question: Will we ever have a “bronze age” too? We’re now exactly halfway through the 2020’s. The first half of this decade was mostly a shitshow, but the second half could go either way. Star Wars is apparently gonna try putting out movies more frequently from now on, as is James Cameron’s Avatar. On similar notes, James Gunn will be launching his new version of the DC universe soon, and Marvel is starting to pivot towards some crazy “Tony Stark as Doctor Doom” thing. Both Marvel and Star Wars are also starting to produce less shows, so that they can focus their resources towards movies again. Here’s the thing, though: Even if all this stuff happens, that doesn’t mean any of it will be good. The second half of this decade could end up being known as the “dark age” of blockbusters, rather than the “bronze age.”

Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how all this shit unfolds, so I figured I might as well blog about it for a bit, is all!

Peace!

Making Lists of My Own Art

  Since I’ve been obsessed with making lists lately (rankings, top tens, and a-to-z’s mainly), I figured it made sense to now do so for my own art, by which I mean my music (released under my real name), books, short stories, and poems. Links to everything at the bottom.

Thank you for indulging in my self-indulgence:

SONGS A TO Z

Angel Voice, Bliss, Connect (Beautiful Corruption version), Dream Me Up, The Escaping, Finishing Touch, Get Out of My Head, Happy Little Accidents, Into the Night (Influx version), Lovemaker, Meant to Go Insane, No Rain in the Distance, On the Run, Palm Trees, Radiation, Silent Spring, The Turnaround, Where Have You Been? (Influx version), You Only Think of You (Influx version)

TOP 10 SONGS

1.Connect (Beautiful Corruption version)

2.Finishing Touch

3.Lovemaker

4.Silent Spring

5.Sapphire

6.No Rain in the Distance

7.On the Run

8.Last Lullaby

9.Where Have You Been? (Influx version)

10.Into the Night (Influx version)

SHORT STORIES A TO Z

Alone, Blessed with Immortality, Causality, Daughter Nature, Every Minute Matters, Foster Mother, Glass of the Sun, Highway to Avalon (short story version), Indoors, Just One Word, The Knowing Stones, The Last Laugh, The Missing Day, Next Star Over (short story version), One Year to Alpha, The Phoenix Curse, Rutharia, Sunrise Order (short story version), Tale Orbs, Wonder’s Last Rescue, You Haven’t Been Around

TOP 10 SHORT STORIES

1.The Phoenix Curse

2.The Last Laugh

3.The Knowing Stones

4.Causality

5.Sunrise Order (short story version)

6.Next Star Over (short story version)

7.Highway to Avalon (short story version)

8.The Stowaway

9.Blessed with Immortality

10.One Year to Alpha

POEMS A TO Z

Another Way to Survive, The Boy & the Lamppost, Circus on the Edge of Town, Distant Lights Downtown, Echo Land, The Future Will Come, Guess the Town, Highway Exits, I Gambled, Just a Feeling, Land of Silence, More than Enough, The Nineties, Only Fear, A Poet in the Middle Ages, Questions & Answers, Real World, Shoreline Community, The Things That Stick Around, Unrequited, Vendetta, What Little Time

ALBUM RANK

1.Beautiful Corruption

2.The Orange E.P.

3.Daytime Moon

4.Influx

5.Scrapbook II

6.Scrapbook

7.Agora!

BOOK RANK

1.Real Enough

2.Next Star Over

3.Sunrise Order

4.Next Star Over: Into the Past

5.Highway to Avalon

6.Meaning in It All

7.Little Life Lessons

SHORT STORY RANK (BLOG STORIES ONLY)

1.The Phoenix Curse

2.The Knowing Stones

3.Causality

4.The Stowaway

5.Blessed with Immortality

6.One Year to Alpha

7.White Star, Cold War

8.The Thing About Space

9.When Nightfall Comes

10.Glass of the Sun

11.Shades of Justice

12.The Sun Elixir

13.The Secret Above

14.Donny’s Motive

15.Dark Magic Trial

16.The Galaxies Beyond

Peace!

Related: My music

Related: Fiction Repository

Related: List Repository

How My Friends Rank Star Wars

  Due to a combination of boredom and insanity, I decided to reach out to a bunch of different people I know and ask them to each rank all live-action, theatrically-released Star Wars films (yes, all eleven of them).

Out of all twenty-five people part of this experiment, only five were women, and the rest were all men. Furthermore, four people here are Zoomers born after mid 1995, while seven are Gen-X’ers who are old enough to remember the original trilogy when it was new, and the remaining fourteen are all Millennials born in the early 90’s. Through my findings, I have found that Zoomers seem to favor the prequel trilogy, and women seem to favor the sequel trilogy (or at least think highly of it).

I changed most of the names here to “protect” identities, and at the bottom of this post I did some analysis/ number-crunching (so feel free to just skip to that part, if you want)…

Welp, here you go!:

TROY

1.Star Wars, 2.Solo, 3.The Empire Strikes Back, 4.Return of the Jedi, 5.The Phantom Menace, 6.The Last Jedi, 7.Attack of the Clones, 8.Revenge of the Sith, 9.The Rise of Skywalker, 10.The Force Awakens, 11.Rogue One

LYDIA

1.Return of the Jedi, 2.Star Wars, 3.The Empire Strikes Back, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.The Last Jedi, 6.The Rise of Skywalker, 7.Rogue One, 8.Solo, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.Revenge of the Sith, 11.Attack of the Clones

MANNY

1.Rogue One, 2.Star Wars, 3.The Empire Strikes Back, 4.Return of the Jedi, 5.Revenge of the Sith, 6.Attack of the Clones, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.The Last Jedi, 9.The Force Awakens, 10.The Rise of Skywalker, 11.Solo

SAL

1.Revenge of the Sith, 2.Attack of the Clones, 3.The Phantom Menace, 4.The Empire Strikes Back, 5.Star Wars, 6.Return of the Jedi, 7.Rogue One, 8.Solo, 9.The Last Jedi, 10.The Force Awakens, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

DAN

1.The Rise of Skywalker, 2.Return of the Jedi, 3.The Phantom Menace, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.Star Wars, 6.Revenge of the Sith, 7.The Last Jedi, 8.Attack of the Clones, 9.The Empire Strikes Back, 10.Rogue One, 11.Solo

KEVIN

1.Star Wars, 2.The Empire Strikes Back, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.Solo, 5.Rogue One, 6.The Force Awakens, 7.Revenge of the Sith, 8.The Rise of Skywalker, 9.The Last Jedi, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.The Phantom Menace

RONALD

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.The Last Jedi, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.Return of the Jedi, 6.Solo, 7.Rogue One, 8.Attack of the Clones, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.Revenge of the Sith, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

DANTE

1.Revenge of the Sith, 2.Attack of the Clones, 3.The Phantom Menace, 4.Return of the Jedi, 5.The Empire Strikes Back, 6.Star Wars, 7.Solo, 8.The Rise of Skywalker, 9.The Force Awakens, 10.Rogue One, 11.The Last Jedi

ROY

1.Star Wars, 2.Rogue One, 3.Solo, 4.The Empire Strikes Back, 5.Return of the Jedi, 6.The Force Awakens, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.The Rise of Skywalker, 9.The Last Jedi, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.Revenge of the Sith

CARLA

1.Star Wars, 2.The Empire Strikes Back, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.The Rise of Skywalker, 6.The Last Jedi, 7.Rogue One, 8.Solo, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.Revenge of the Sith

RYAN

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.Revenge of the Sith, 5.Rogue One, 6.The Force Awakens, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.Solo, 9.The Last Jedi, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

JOHN

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Rogue One, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.Star Wars, 5.Solo, 6.Revenge of the Sith, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.Attack of the Clones, 9.The Rise of Skywalker, 10.The Last Jedi, 11.The Force Awakens

WILL

1.Return of the Jedi, 2.Revenge of the Sith, 3.Attack of the Clones, 4.The Phantom Menace, 5.Rogue One, 6.The Empire Strikes Back, 7.Star Wars, 8.Solo, 9.The Rise of Skywalker, 10.The Last Jedi, 11.The Force Awakens

CHRISTOPHER

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.Rogue One, 5.The Force Awakens, 6.Revenge of the Sith, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.Attack of the Clones, 9.Solo, 10.The Rise of Skywalker, 11.The Last Jedi

JAMES

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Return of the Jedi, 3.Star Wars, 4.Revenge of the Sith, 5.The Force Awakens, 6.The Phantom Menace, 7.Rogue One, 8.Solo, 9.Attack of the Clones, 10.The Last Jedi, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

DARLA

1.The Force Awakens, 2.Solo, 3.Rogue One, 4.Star Wars, 5.The Empire Strikes Back, 6.Return of the Jedi, 7.The Rise of Skywalker, 8.The Last Jedi, 9.Revenge of the Sith, 10.The Phantom Menace, 11.Attack of the Clones

JACOB

1.Solo, 2.The Empire Strikes Back, 3.Star Wars, 4.Return of the Jedi, 5.The Force Awakens, 6.The Last Jedi, 7.Rogue One, 8.Revenge of the Sith, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

JIM

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.The Last Jedi, 5.Rogue One, 6.The Force Awakens, 7.The Phantom Menace, 8.Revenge of the Sith, 9.Attack of the Clones, 10.The Rise of Skywalker, 11.Solo

FRANK

1.Return of the Jedi, 2.The Empire Strikes Back, 3.Star Wars, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.Rogue One, 6.Solo, 7.Revenge of the Sith, 8.The Phantom Menace, 9.Attack of the Clones, 10.The Rise of Skywalker, 11.The Last Jedi

EVELYN

1.The Last Jedi, 2.The Empire Strikes Back, 3.Star Wars, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.Return of the Jedi, 6.Solo, 7.Rogue One, 8.Revenge of the Sith, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.The Rise of Skywalker

OCTOBER

1.The Last Jedi, 2.The Force Awakens, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.The Empire Strikes Back, 5.Star Wars, 6.Solo, 7.The Rise of Skywalker, 8.Rogue One, 9.Revenge of the Sith, 10.Attack of the Clones, 11.The Phantom Menace

LOUIS

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.The Force Awakens, 5.The Last Jedi, 6.Rogue One, 7.Revenge of the Sith, 8.Attack of the Clones, 9.The Phantom Menace, 10.The Rise of Skywalker, 11.Solo

HANK

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Star Wars, 3.Return of the Jedi, 4.The Last Jedi, 5.The Force Awakens, 6.Rogue One, 7.Solo, 8.Revenge of the Sith, 9.The Rise of Skywalker, 10.The Phantom Menace, 11.Attack of the Clones

EVAN

1.The Phantom Menace, 2.Attack of the Clones, 3.Revenge of the Sith, 4.The Empire Strikes Back, 5.Rogue One, 6.Star Wars, 7.Return of the Jedi, 8.The Last Jedi, 9.The Rise of Skywalker, 10.The Force Awakens, 11.Solo

KEITH

1.The Empire Strikes Back, 2.Rogue One, 3.The Last Jedi, 4.Star Wars, 5.The Force Awakens, 6.The Rise of Skywalker, 7.Return of the Jedi, 8.Solo, 9.Revenge of the Sith, 10.The Phantom Menace, 11.Attack of the Clones

And with that, let’s do some analysis:

FAVORITES

The Empire Strikes Back: 9

Star Wars: 4

Return of the Jedi: 3

Revenge of the Sith, The Last Jedi: 2

Attack of the Clones: 0

Everything else: 1

LEAST-FAVORITES

The Rise of Skywalker: 6

Solo: 5

Attack of the Clones: 4

The Last Jedi: 3

The Phantom Menace, Revenge of the Sith, The Force Awakens: 2

Rogue One: 1

Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi: 0

DIFFERENTIALS

The Empire Strikes Back: 9

Star Wars: 4

Return of the Jedi: 3

Revenge of the Sith, Rogue One: 0

The Phantom Menace, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi: -1

Attack of the Clones, Solo: -4

The Rise of Skywalker: -5

So there you have it! As you can see, the original trilogy is still beloved far more than everything else, in general. Though as I said at the top of this post, some of that might have to do with demographics. Nevertheless, it’s cool to see a whole bunch of different opinions! Thanks again to everyone who willingly participated in this. And for what it’s worth: No, I won’t be doing this again when the new movies are finally released, whenever that’ll be… If ever…

Peace!

Related: List Repository

My Favorite Distractions

  A while back I wrote about how journaling has really improved my mental health. That said, there are other things I do to distract myself from the “rough spots” in life, and figured I might as well share those here too…

So here we go:

Music

Figured it made sense to start with this one, cause it’s no-brainer. Listening to music is a part of everyone’s lives, and for some of us, playing music helps too. While I no longer write my own songs, I still “jam” on my guitar at least a little every day.

Little games

By “little” I mean stuff like Tetris, Solitaire, Wordle, etc. Basically just easy stuff that’s universally accepted as “low-risk.” Studies show that these kinds of games can be quite therapeutic, as a matter of fact! Make no mistake, though: If you’re prone to “gamer rage,” you might still get that even from these kinds of games, at least to a certain extent… Oh yeah, and for solitaire in particular, I like to alternate between easy mode and hard.

Making lists

Meta, I know! But seriously, I’ve found over the years that making lists can be pretty relaxing for me, and I’ve heard others say the same. Doesn’t have to be a specific topic, either. While I lean towards pop culture related stuff, I can make lists of pretty much anything. You don’t need to look further than my list repository to see that. In fact, I recently made a food list, of all things!

Mind games

What I mean by this is little games that you play entirely in your head. My favorite example of this is “track-by-tracks” (a term coined by a YouTuber I follow called Almost Human). This is where you take two different albums that have the same number of tracks and do “song vs. song” for Track 1, Track 2, and so on, and then add up all the points in the end to see which album wins. Basically any other variation of comparing one thing to another applies here too.

Muscle relaxation through “mentalizing”

This is actually a technique that’s mainly used by the military, to help them fall asleep faster/ in uncomfortable conditions, but I find that it can also help with simply de-stressing during the day too. Basically, you start by picking a spot on your body (usually somewhere on your face like your nose or the inside of your mouth, but starting from your fingers or toes works too). Then you think about all the different little muscle fibers in that particular area, and imagine those fibers “loosening up.” Then, continue that process through different parts of your body, until you fall asleep (or feel relaxed). This is basically an advanced form of “counting sheep.”

“Survival mode”

This is simply the act of reminding yourself that the most important thing in life is simply just to survive in the present moment. Humans need three things to survive: Food, water, and shelter. Constantly remind yourself that you have those things, and if you don’t, figure out what you need to do to get them. If it helps, pretend your life is a livestream, or reality show of some kind, and constantly narrate to yourself in your head as you do the things you need to for survival. Even sleep is technically something we need to survive, so I find that narrating to myself “I’m going to sleep now cause I need to” in my head also helps (in addition to the muscle technique mentioned above).

“Easy” watching

As one might expect, this is just simply the act of watching TV or videos that don’t require too much attention or investment. Your favorite game show, your favorite cooking show, your favorite YouTuber, your favorite movie series or TV show that you continue to marathon over and over cause it’s comforting for one reason or another… You get the idea…

Tea

Caffeinated tea is both energizing yet also relaxing, thanks to the amino acid L-theanine. Alternatively, herbal tea can also be relaxing, for a variety of other reasons. I’ve recently gotten into a new routine where I drink caffeinated tea in the morning, followed by herbal tea in the afternoon, and then herbal tea again in the evening. Just the act of preparing tea alone (in addition to preparing meals, of course) gives me something to “focus” on. An additional “purpose” for getting through the day, if you will. I think hot drinks in particular work for this reason cause you have to drink them slowly.

Looking for patterns

I saved this one for the near end cause it’s not really something I do anymore, but felt it was worth noting anyways. This task just simply entails looking for patterns all around you. Count how many pens happen to be on the table in front of you right now. Focus on the seams on the blanket on your bed. Look out the window and see how many cars (or cars of a particular color) pass by over the next minute or so. Stuff like that. Again, I eventually burnt out on this one, but for at least a little bit of time, it helped me a lot.

Multitasking

This basically just means doing one or more of the things above. In fact, just the other day I was listening to a live stream while playing solitaire and occasionally looking over at my TV on mute. This sorta thing may be frowned upon by some, but personally, if multitasking doesn’t burn you out, I think there’s nothing wrong with it.

As I wrap up here, I’d like to make one more point: Whatever you decide to do to distract yourself in a healthy way, if you’re still not “feeling it,” treat it like work. Pretend like you have to do it. I guess it goes with the whole “pretend your life is a reality show” bullshit…

…Well, thank you for indulging me once again!

Peace!

My Favorite Foods Per Culture

  Continuing my journey to make as many pointless lists as possible, I thought it’d be fun to do something food related this time…

So here:

Mexican - quesadillas with sour cream

Chinese - beef and broccoli with white rice

Portuguese - grilled chicken with fries

English - full English breakfast

Italian - pizza

American - hot dog w/ mustard & relish

German - bratwurst with sauerkraut

Indian - chicken tikka masala (or butter chicken) with rice and garlic naan

Japanese - hibachi

French - French onion soup

Spanish - paella

Greek - gyros

Thai - pad thai

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Mexican - burrito bowl

Chinese - sesame/ orange chicken with white rice

Portuguese - Prego no Prato (basically a steak with an egg on it)

English - blueberry scones or bangers & mash

Italian - pasta

American - hamburger with mayonnaise and ketchup

German - pork schnitzel

Indian - curry

Japanese - sushi

French - potatoes au gratin

Spanish - tapas (in general)

Greek - Greek salad

Thai - green or yellow curry

…Welp, now I’m hungry!

Peace!

Related: List Repository