Month: November 2015

Literature4 Comments

How to Fall in Love with Your Writing

Dennis R. Upkins

It’s 5:45 a.m. on Monday, November. 30, at the time of writing this article. For the past few hours I’ve been in writer mode which can best be described as Puppet Angel, hence the pic.

For most people it’s the start of a new week and the final day in the month. But for an intrepid lot, today is essentially Judgment Day.

The final hours of National Novel Writing Month are upon us. NaNoWriMo is perhaps the writing equivalent of Battle Royale/Hunger Games/Mortal Kombat/Thunderdome. Each year, many enter, but only a handful survive.

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Martial Arts, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Who Run the World? Girls!

Keith Chow

The third episode of Into the Badlands — “White Stork Spreads Wings” — will be the last one to follow The Walking Dead since last night was the mid-season finale for everyone’s favorite zombie show. How Badlands will fare without its massive lead-in will be a question to be answered next week. If this episode is any indication, viewers should be coming back in full force even without a zombie pre-show.

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Misc3 Comments

A Hard N.O.C. Life For Us

Dennis R. Upkins

Our fearless leader Keith Chow doesn’t know I’m doing this and hopefully he won’t kill me too badly. I’ve been meaning to share this story because I know Keith’s too humble to do it himself. And since a certain someone celebrated a birthday last week, this seemed only appropriate.

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Marvel, Movies4 Comments

Thankful for the Captain America: Civil War Trailer

Keith Chow

Last night on a special all-Marvel edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live (corporate synergy, yay!), stars Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. were on to hype next summer’s Captain America: Civil War. Unsurprisingly, Disney and Marvel Studios used the opportunity to unveil the hotly anticipated first trailer, and predictably, the internet lost its shit. But in a good way!

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Crowdfunding, Hard N.O.C. Life, Video Games1 Comment

Help Dante Basco and Beau Sia Kickstart FailSafe

The Nerds of Color

There is only one week left in the Kickstarter for Failsafe, a new independent video game by Game Over Studios. Co-created by poet Beau Sia and featuring voices by Ashly Burch and Dante Basco. To help get the word out about the campaign, Beau and Dante stopped by Hard N.O.C. Life to talk about the game and the new world of storytelling their exploring with Failsafe.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television3 Comments

NOC Recaps Supergirl: Lord Have Mercy

Keith Chow

The fifth episode of Supergirl on CBS finally aired last night, and now we know how the continuity glitches from last week’s episode would be resolved. In case you didn’t know, the episode “How Does She Do It” was scheduled to air last week, but was postponed after terrorists attacked several sites in Paris and Beirut. Instead, they aired the Thanksgiving episode that introduced Livewire, but also picked up a couple story threads that weren’t woven until last night. So was the delay worth it?

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Martial Arts, Recaps, Television2 Comments

NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: #WheresWidow

Keith Chow

For obvious reasons, we’ve been riding the Into the Badlands train from jump, and now that it’s here — and a huge hit — we couldn’t wait to add the show to the Recap rotation. We’ve been holding on to this one for a while too, since we got an early look at episode two a few months ago. As much as I dug the pilot, I always thought the second episode was where the series was going to take off with audiences. And if nerd twitter was any indication Sunday night, everyone else agreed.

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Guest Post, Movies, Star Wars6 Comments

Fear Leads — Anticipating Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Guest N.O.C.

by Brandon Thomas | Originally posted at The Fiction House

There’s only one thing about Star Wars: The Force Awakens that scares me…

It’s not the question of whether or not it’s going to be any good, because I know it will be. It’s not the possibility that the movie will birth an everlasting big screen dynasty, because it’s too early in the game to speculate on that. It’s not the intentional absence of Luke Skywalker from everything, because I think it’s admirable to preserve such a fundamental question for the actual movie. It’s not even minor spoilers, though I am taking some protective measures, and have sworn off any further clips, now that I have my Finn focused TV spot to watch over and over again.

No, what I’m afraid about more than anything else, is the true revelation of Finn’s overall role within this new trilogy.

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Fantasy, Movies11 Comments

Remember the Time When Ancient Egypt was White?

Keith Chow

Because Hollywood never learns its lesson, Summer 2016 is going to bring yet another whitewashed movie about Ancient Egypt. Late last week Lionsgate shocked the world and unveiled character posters for God of Egypt, a movie that, until now, literally no one had heard about. Then yesterday, they dropped an even more ridiculous trailer.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television2 Comments

NOC Recaps The Flash: Desperate Measures

Christelle G.

The Flash has reached near terminal velocity in my eyes with this episode featuring The Flash family at it’s craziest and the welcoming of Linda Park to the team. We all knew Linda had to get into the Secret Speedster Society at some point, considering she is the future Mrs. Wally West, but I did not expect it to be so freaking fun.

Linda Park is… a ball of light.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television1 Comment

NOC Recaps Supergirl: Electric Boogaloo

Keith Chow

After the horrific attacks in Paris and Beirut over the weekend, CBS decided to postpone the already scheduled episode of Supergirl — which apparently centered around a terrorist attack in National City — and instead aired the Thanksgiving episode that was slated for next week. This shuffle in the schedule could have led to some continuity gaps, but apart from a weirdly resurrected Jimmy/Lucy relationship, it didn’t feel too out of place. So what did we think of the latest incarnation of Livewire’s origins?

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Guest Post, Martial Arts, Television

The Daniel Wu Diet

Guest N.O.C.

by Lynn Chen | Originally posted at The Actor’s Diet

Oh, how I love when my fellow actors post photos of food, especially when they’re on set.  The yumminess below is from Daniel Wu’s Instagram feed, most of them captured in New Orleans while he was filming Into the Badlands, a martial arts TV show very loosely based on the classic Chinese tale, “Journey to the West.”

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Comics, Conventions

SPX’s Black Art Matters Panel is Online

The Nerds of Color

Back in September, we tried to get you all hyped for the 21st annual Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD. One of the main reasons for that excitement was the (controversially named) “Black Art Matters” panel moderated by legendary cartoonist Keith Knight and featuring artists C. Spike Trotman, Whit Taylor, Ron Wimberly, and Darryl Ayo.

If you missed out on SPX this year, you can still see the panel in its entirety after the jump since the show organizers have just posted it online.

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Martial Arts, Television7 Comments

NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: The Time is Now

Keith Chow

Originally posted at Angry Asian Man

As we near the end of 2015, one thing is for sure: it’s a great time to be an Asian American television consumer. For the first time in history, you’ll need two hands to count the number of major television programs to feature Asian American leads! On ABC alone, you have shows like Fresh of the Boat, Dr. Ken, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Quantico.

This Sunday night, the biggest network of them all — AMC — throws its hat into the ring with Into the Badlands, a dystopian martial arts drama starring Daniel Wu. And I can safely say the show is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

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Star Trek, Television3 Comments

The Wesley Crusher Appreciation Post

Dennis R. Upkins

So recently Wil Wheaton won the internet (yet again) when he threw down the gauntlet for all writers (such as yours truly) when he stated that writers deserve to be paid with actual cash.

Truth be told, Wheaton was perhaps my first major crush, with a legendary character known as Wesley Crusher.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television1 Comment

NOC Recaps Arrow: There’s No Place Like Immediately Leaving Home

Constance Gibbs

Felicity hasn’t showered in a week, Sara woke up from her soul coma, and Ray returns in this week’s Arrow, “Lost Souls.” As we’ve discussed before, most of this season of Arrow (and somewhat The Flash) has been set up for Legends of Tomorrow. I don’t have a problem with this because it’s been moving our characters forward all season (as we see especially this week with Olicity), but I wondered today what would happen to the season when they don’t have Legends to work towards. But that’s a question for another day. Let’s base jump into this thing like Curtis and Felicity!

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Martial Arts, Television1 Comment

Follow the N.O.C. to Win Into the Badlands Swag

Keith Chow

We’ve been gearing up all week for the debut of Into the Badlands this Sunday night after an all-new episode of The Walking Dead. Yesterday, we re-posted Timothy Tau’s Hyphen interview with star Daniel Wu. I also had a chance to briefly talk with the Hong Kong movie icon about martial arts and stereotypes, but more importantly, we’re teaming up with AMC to giveaway some really cool Into the Badlands goodies.

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Animation, Guest Post, Star Wars4 Comments

Spark of Diversity: What Sabine Wren Means For Star Wars

Guest N.O.C.

by Bria LaVorgna | Originally posted at Tosche Station

Sometimes, the impact of a character can take you completely by surprise. I’d known for weeks and weeks before the premiere of Star Wars Rebels that I was excited for the show to start. It featured a family-like crew filled with characters who seemed right up my alley. What I didn’t realize until I sat down on my couch to watch Spark of Rebellion for the first time last year is what seeing Sabine Wren on the screen was going to mean to me. Finally, after twenty-four years, there was a main character in a Star Wars film or television show that looked like me and the full impact of this hit me like a ton of bricks as she took her bucket off for the first time.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps Arrow: He Restoreth Her Soul

Constance Gibbs

Full disclaimer: I didn’t watch Constantine on NBC. Sorry! But even without knowledge of the character or the show, I enjoyed this crossover (is it still a crossover when one of the crossed shows is cancelled?). John Constantine and Oliver had great bro-chemistry and the little bits of interaction he had with the rest of Team Arrow were great as well. 10/10, would enjoy again.

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Guest Post, Interview, Martial Arts, Television3 Comments

Daniel Wu Goes Into the Badlands

Guest N.O.C.

by Timothy Tau | Originally posted on Hyphen

Daniel Wu is a Chinese American actor/director/writer/producer that has already had quite an impressive career overseas in Hong Kong, appearing in over 60 films there — many of them box-office hits —  and also winning awards for his directing, producing and performance work (such as the “Best New Director Award” at the Hong Kong Film Awards for his directorial debut The Heavenly Kings in 2006, which he also wrote, produced and starred in, and a Golden Horse Award for “Best Supporting Actor” in Jackie Chan’s New Police Story in 2004. He will also be starring in Duncan Jones’ Warcraft movie in 2016.

Wu breaks into American TV airwaves on Sunday, November 15th (at 10/9c) with the debut of AMC’s Into The Badlands, which has been receiving buzz as a hotly-anticipated new martial arts drama/action television show featuring not just one but two Asian American leads — Aramis Knight, a young actor of Pakistani and East Indian descent, also plays supporting character M.K. alongside Wu’s main protagonist Sunny. In this interview, readers will appreciate Wu’s illuminating answers, in-depth insight no doubt informed by seasoned experience and hard-won achievements on both sides of the Pacific.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television3 Comments

NOC Recaps Supergirl: Flight Song

Keith Chow

With each passing week, I’m becoming more and more impressed with Supergirl as a series. Sure, the pilot was already strong, but last week’s episode definitely raised the bar. Now with episode three in the can, the sky’s the limit for Supergirl to blaze its own trail. It’s just too bad the ratings are not keeping pace with the quality of the series. Come on, America! Tune in because this show could use your eyeballs!

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Marvel, Television5 Comments

Fixing Marvel’s Iron Fist: Introducing Danny Rand to a New Audience

The Nerds of Color

by MC Nedelsky in collaboration with MCU Exchange

We’re continuing our look at how Marvel can adapt Iron Fist for Netflix, and while an earlier post looked at the supposed difficulties of incorporating the mystical elements of the Iron Fist mythology into the Netflix world, perhaps Marvel’s issue is a more basic one — the challenge of how introduce a character to a new audience given a complicated and convoluted continuity.

This is of course an issue any comic book adaptation must grapple with, but Iron Fist has a particularly convoluted and dense continuity. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with the basics of the character — a young boy shaped by the trauma of the death of his parents, trained in a mystical city, who returns to Earth to seek vengeance — is a phenomenal origin story for a superhero. Rather, its the labyrinthine and often contradictory history that has been built up around the character over time. Any adaption will necessarily make changes to smooth out continuity, and I have five small but crucial suggestions on how to do just that. Best of all for purists, these changes leave Danny Rand himself almost completely unchanged — instead, they focus on his father, who presents the majority of the backstory issues.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television5 Comments

NOC Recaps The Flash: When Harry Met Barry

Christelle G.

Welcome to the reboot of Harrison Wells! The general consensus is that we (the audience and Team Flash “we”) are predisposed to dislike anyone with Harrison Wells’ handsome face. I mean, each character has their reasons for not trusting the man, and most of them involve some sort of — ahem–  murder-y business.. I mean, a guy shouldn’t be blamed for an alternate timeline which he was body snatched by an evil, time-traveling speedster, right? So, on paper, everyone should technically be like, “Hey, that wasn’t him. It was just his face! …His good looking, striking face. Let’s give him a chance to be a nice guy.”

But humans (specifically nerds) are fickle, stubborn creatures.

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