Topics

When looking at protagonists or leading characters throughout film history, particularly modern history, are there ever primary characters who wear glasses while being a hero, or while being at the height of their strength? Examples that I'm thinking of specifically are the main character from "Kickass"- he only seems to be wearing his glasses when he's in his "nerdy" stage. Superman only wears glasses to be a nerdy disguise. Perhaps the one outlier I've seen is in the movie "Falling Down", which stars Michael Douglas as a disgruntled citizen who's had enough, and he has his glasses the entire movie- but it plays to his characters attitude and personality. Will a main character wearing glasses just prove to cause too many subconscious feelings for viewers? Will the glare be too much? What is the issue?

What causes us to not get enough? Netflix release Orange is the New Black all at once! That is correct – the entire season in one fell swoop. 'The Netflix Binge' has become a cultural phenom for us. So what causes us to binge? Are we addicted to our characters? Does it fall under immediate gratification? Suggestions?

Analyse different characters in novels who's race/ethnicity were left open for reader's interpretation. For example, in wake of the new casting of a black Hermione Granger, many people are going back to the Harry Potter books to find evidence of "whiteness" to discredit having a black Hermione. Although, never stated in the books she was black or white, many people, by default, believed that Hermione was white. Talk about why people automatically assume a default description of a character's appearance and if it hurts or helps a book series to keep a character's physical appearance open for other's to interpret.

The title says it all. Look at how kickstarter is bringing back some old titles via fan support. Whether its directly like Shenmue or spiritual sequals like Yooka Layle kickstarter is allowing more games that fans really want to come back. The author should look at some of the fail stories as well to show its not all perfect.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe had a great year!
With phase one and two being over, (phase two ended with Ant-Man) and phase three coming up sooner rather than later with Civil War, I really want to focus on a "What's to come" sort of aspect of the phases when it comes to phase three.

Phase one was just the beginning and it started the phase's out pretty decently. You can focus on the aspect of talking about how well those films did for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 2008-2012 was a time where the MCU was just starting out with the graphic choices and getting into the deeper realms of how they were going to depict these Avengers characters on the screen.

Then you can talk about phase two with the same topic as well, and talking about how they've progressed as films and characters from phase one. Which, I feel is an important aspect, from the changes of directors to different choices made by those directors and even to Marvel being partnered with Disney as well, which happened in 2009.

Then you can even focus on what's to come. Civil War is supposed to be the film of all films, it supposed to start phase three off really well. And from what the trailer shows and what we all know about it, it really is supposed to be great.

You can also talk about how phase two ended with Ant-Man, do you as a comic reader/MCU film watcher feel it was right to end with Ant-Man, was that a good ending spot for the phase to end with? And upcoming films such as; Doctor Strange, Guardians 2, Thor: Ragnarok, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Avengers: Infinity War, Inhumans, Captain Marvel, Black Panther and Another Spider-Man. What creative choices can be made with these now that we've had two completed phases and kind of a reaction to those; but also, what can be done to keep the attention of watchers of the MCU and etc.,

Around three-quarters of the way through RPW's masterpiece, Jack Burden observes Adam Stanton perform a lobotomy on one of his patients. Some have argued that the lobotomy represents Jack's disassociation with the present, yet some will go further and say that Jack is watching himself undergo a lobotomy, as a sort of 'out of body' experience. Talk about the possible reasons for Jack's fascination with the surgery…what is the relationship between "The Great Twitch" and the lobotomy? Are Jack's "Great Sleeps" just the same as a lobotomy? Analyze the implications of a lobotomy in terms of Jack's existential crisis, and perhaps suggest an explanation for Jack's eventual disgust with the surgery.

I'd like to see a topic on how and why celebrities and professional producers who have many more funding avenues available to them than amateurs still resort to using crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter to fund high profile projects

The cultural critic Camille Paglia is a critic of identity politics, especially with regards to gender. She has said that the proliferation of different identities, the different gradations of gender, and etc., often happen in the late-stages of a culture, before the verge of collapse, where all kinds of amoral behavior result, such as homosexuality and sadomasochism, which are basically signs of decadence (her words, not mine.) Is there any truth to this? Do you think that identity politics, especially of sexual and gender identity, is a sign of the fall of Western civilization, specifically the United States? Give specific examples from art of any medium to support your claims about the decline of Western civilization.

Analyse the early works of feminism in literature and today's. For example, compare Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre to Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, Talk about the way women are depicted in these novels, why they're feminist, and what message both novels are trying to give to women.

On the 24th December at 12.01 am, The Beatles' music became available on different online streaming platforms like Spotify, Deezer and Amazon. Explore why this has taken so long. What are the conditions for an artist to put his music online? What are the politics of music streaming? Why were The Beatles' franchise to reluctant to go into streaming? What is there to win/to loose?

I want to focus on the Fight Club 2 series of comics, and how they continue the story from the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, who also writes the comic as well (I believe). There is about 8 issues as of right now of Fight Club 2 and you can focus on two aspects (three possibly).

Fight Club 2 as a comic series and how it stands on the basis of being a comic series, the ability that Dark Horse gives Fight Club 2 to do what it wants to do to continue the novel and series. Plus the character development and how the characters are written as continued from the novel, if you'd like.

Then you can focus on the novel itself and how that differs or not from the comics — thinking, character wise and plot wise as well. Since Fight Club 2 is a continuation about 10 years later from the novel.

The third aspect of this could be (if you wanted) tying the two together, just as a whole — do you think or does the comic book audience think that there is potential for a part three or four after this one ends, each spanning in 10 years after the last one? Or does it have potential to do that much with the comic series. I would also love to see the art-work being talked about because Cameron Stewart and Dave Stewart do an amazing job with the art alone! That's something that I, as a reader, become amazed with just looking at it each time a new issues comes out.

Here's a quote as well that explains about Fight Club 2, if you haven't read the comic series, or want to know: "At the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con International, Palahniuk announced that a sequel to Fight Club is in the works and will take the form of a serialized graphic novel. According to Palahniuk, “It will likely be a series of books that update the story ten years after the seeming end of Tyler Durden. Nowadays, Tyler is telling the story, lurking inside Jack, and ready to launch a come-back. Jack is oblivious. Marla is bored. Their marriage has run aground on the rocky coastline of middle-aged suburban boredom. It’s only when their little boy disappears, kidnapped by Tyler, that Jack is dragged back into the world of Mayhem.”[33] Dark Horse Comics is publishing this new story in a 10-issue maxi series, written by Palahniuk and illustrated by Cameron Stewart, starting in 2015.[34] Artist David W. Mack, who is friends with Palahniuk, will be illustrating the covers for the series and has said of the material, "The twists and turns are just primo artifacts of Chuck Palahniuk’s brain material.

I'm specifically thinking of companies like Ubisoft and their Assassin's Creed franchise (although whoever chooses this topic doesn't have to focus on either of these). Don't get me wrong: I don't mind the AC series. But there has come a point where just about everyone rolls their eyes at a new AC release (even if they end up purchasing it anyway).

Besides the obvious answer (i.e. easy money), why do publishers continue to milk their popular series to death? When should they call it quits, and how? Is there a "right" way to do it? Do they continue to milk these series simply because it is a safe move? If all stories must eventually come to an end, why do some companies stretch out these series until it becomes unbearable?

What are alternative Christmas films to watch and are they any particular reasons why they turn away from traditional Christmas narratives.

Recently, in the wake of Star Wars Force Awakens, there has been something of an uproar over the absence of the female character Rey from many action figure or doll sets. This is not a new phenomenon. Provide some examples of other times when female characters from movies have been excluded from merchandising targeted to boys and explain why this intense seems to be different. Is this the fight which will determine the future of merchandising?

Roosterteeth started as 6 guys playing halo and has emerged as an internet multi media juggernaut that can succeed in almost all forms of media. Machinima (Red vs Blue), live action (Lazer team, shorts), Lets Plays (Achievement hunter, Funhaus), animation (RWBY, XRay and Vav), Podcasts (The RT Podcast, The Patch) and even game development, they have done it all in the online scene. An article following their moves from bedroom machinimators to multimedia giants could find some interesting parallels to other online companies (Rocket Jump, Machinima) or even some larger companies.

A trend that has always been present in the game making community is to look at whatever is popular and copy that in order to cash in on said popularity, before moving on to the next trend. This behavior is, to an extent, reinforced by the major publishers themselves, and often we will see many big games coming out around the same time that are all basically the same thing in terms of overall design, and sequels are abundant. However, despite publishers trying to tell gamers what they should be playing, and in many cases selling what are basically carbon copies of the same game each year, many games such as Undertale have come out recently that go completely against the grain and are still extremely well received. What sort of impact, if any, do you think that this obvious disparity between what gamers actually want, and what publishers think we want or want us to want, will have for the future of games in the coming year?

Write a list of anime television series which may not have been big cross-over hits like Attack on Titan and Full Metal Alchemist, but probably could work as popular series in this market. Series that come to my mind are Eden of the East, Paranoia Agent, Terror in Resonance (mystery series), High School of the Dead (zombies), Maison Ikkoku, Nana, Usagi Drop, Kaleido Star and other sports anime (soaps), Dance with Devils (fantasy), Sound Euphonium (music)… any others that come to mind may be added, but try to avoid anime-only genres such as mecha, ecchi (too much of it anyway) and magical girls.

In the crowded space that is the media, the digital growth has left profound effects to which writing is contending to keep pace with. Primarily, though English has maintained itself to be the language of the cyber world, there is a consistent mingling of cultures and tongues that our entire world shares in. This topic is meant to provoke the questions about the assimilating values that have shaped the digital crowd, and what kind of adaptations are made to the languages we commonly speak. What can we gather and understand from these changes?

Look at the influence some famous vloggers have had on culture (i.e. Casey Neistat). What is the appeal of this form of sharing? Where should the line between real life and the web be drawn?

An obvious difference between the epic poem "The Aeneid", and the opera "Aeneas and Dido" is that "The Aeneid" discusses how Aeneas created the foundations for Rome, whilst "Aeneas Dido", by Henry Purcell, only focuses on the aspects of that epic poem that focus on the relationship between Aeneas, and Dido. With that stated, compare the two works, and discuss the modifications that Purcell made to his opera. Specifically, given that the opera was written in the late 17th Century, discuss what role nationalism played in the plot if any (in light of the Roman, Trojan, and Carthaginian dynamics). What role does amourous emotion play in both the epic poem, and the opera (including, but not limited to Dido's suicide)? The role of the gods in both should also be discussed.