Author: Zac Fanni

Spider-Man: Homecoming and the Nadir of Marvel’s Formula

Spider-Man: Homecoming and the Nadir of Marvel’s Formula

Posted by | Jul 14, 2017 |

Let me get this out of the way: I hate seeming like that guy. The guy who is driven to despise every broadly appealing thing in pop culture, snarkily contradicting ‘proletariat’ tastes just to affirm the value of his own selective, finicky (and ultimately insecure) palate. Movies should not be the means to signal any kind of cultural refinement—like many of us who take them seriously, they are a way of life for me. They are companions that comfort, challenge and grow with you. I can watch Baby Driver and The Big Sick, wholly distinct and different films, and...

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Video Essay: Romantic Literature and Alien: Covenant

Video Essay: Romantic Literature and Alien: Covenant

Posted by | Jun 19, 2017 |

Alien: Covenant continues the brave legacy of Prometheus. It refuses to regurgitate the conventions its franchise established, relying instead on the android to deliver its moments of horror. By focusing on David the android, Covenant becomes a part of the Romantic literary tradition of pushing against the boundaries of our understanding, twisting and permeating the boundaries between life and death (I wrote about this here). Like the quintessential Romantic novel Frankenstein, Alien: Covenant centers its characters around a search for an answer to our deepest existential questions: is there a meaning to life? Can our existence be explained entirely by...

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David; or, The Modern Frankenstein: A Romantic Analysis of Alien: Covenant

David; or, The Modern Frankenstein: A Romantic Analysis of Alien: Covenant

Posted by | May 25, 2017 |

And now this spell was snapt: once more I viewed the ocean green, And looked far forth, yet little saw Of what had else been seen— Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. (442-451) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Dread is the fear that lingers, the fear that condenses into an apprehension so tangible that it becomes a part of our environments: once the literal...

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