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Reviews
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Possibly the Perfect Family Movie
I don't do this very often anymore but I feel this review needs to be written.
Let me start off by saying that I'm a big Wes Anderson fan. I've seen every movie with the exception of two until today which leaves me with just Isle of Dogs to watch next to catch up on all of his works.
Everything about this movie is perfectly done. It's a very difficult film to critique negatively and even in the scenes where you can see the reflections of the guys doing the stop motion photography in the windows, it fits just fine. Again, everything was done well. You have the proud and highly successful father stifled by the responsibility of practical adulthood, the mother with a past, a child of seemingly little significance but incredible mental resilience but is relentlessly mocked and ignored, a relative child that is perfect at everything that gets virtually all of the admiration from the world in every moment, and a character that seemly exists purely to break the 4th wall in every scene. You also have a wonderful cast of supporting characters with their own clearly defined traits and skills to aid in the progress of the story. As the story progresses each character experiences growth in a realistic way; friendships are formed, fights start and end, disagreements about decisions arise, and neighbors quarrel and makeup. Throughout the film we see the characters battle through adversity and go from being distant neighbors in the wide open country to close friends packed into the urban setting. As they become physically closer they also become more reliant on each other and more recognizably part of each other's lives in a positive way.
The animation was done flawlessly, the actors chosen to play each role were chosen perfectly, the acting was immaculate. The way that swearing without swearing was written in was one of the best gags I've ever seen in a movie because as a kid you're just hearing them say the word "cuss" without being able to fill in the blank; as an adult you know what they've said and more or less hear them say it only to have to remind yourself that they only actually said "cuss". This is a movie that anyone can sit down with anyone else of any age and it's going to be safe and fun but it'll have something for everyone. Even when CG is used, it is used properly as an effect to enhance rather than the core of the animation in the film. It seems like they did everything in their power to do everything as a practical effect. And in today's day and age of doing everything in post, that's a huge plus for me.
I've gotta say, I think this is the perfect family movie.
10/10.
You Can't Kill Meme (2021)
A documentary about internet history from the perspective of someone that was never involved in internet history
I have mixed feelings about this documentary so my review may be relatively meandering and disjointed not unlike the documentary itself.
So first things first; the documentary starts off in a bad position with the misuse of the term meme as a stand in for what is really called image macro. Basically to understand this you need to go back to the early days of funny images with text on them and actually understand the terminology and we've gotten so far disconnected from that point these days that people will actually argue that a meme is an image. This is not correct. While image macros develop memetic response they themselves are not memes. What I have more of an issue with on this topic however is that there are times that the term meme is used correctly to identify the larger behavioral patterns that emerge from the usage of image macros. It's a confusing topic to discuss when the terminology is being used so interchangeably between the two separate yet connected things.
Now where this gets even more hairy is in the conversation of memes as magic. Where magic is functionally defined as either a level of technology or an applied concept that is so far outside of the understanding of the average individual in a society. However, memetics is a concept that is very well studied in sociology and can be replicated though various experiments and happens regardless of access to any substantial technology. Man of the people that are being interviewed are staggeringly correct in what they are saying about memes and how memes work and how memes are weaponized as a concept but they are attributing this phenomenon to something supernatural rather than something inherent and intrinsic to humans that lead to our development to what we have become today. Memetics have a tendency to drive social evolution and as such from the perspective of someone that is not studied in psychology or sociology it would definitely appear to be magic. Topics like confidence derived from self actualization are discussed as mystical and karmic. Interestingly these same people seem to have a certain understanding of the concept of chaos as a necessary factor and state towards developing order. There are some absolute nut jobs in this documentary that are doing far more harm than good, but there are people that have incredible minds and clearly weren't given the opportunities to explore their intellectual capacities and legitimize their theories.
The documentary was very difficult to get through, it dragged a lot especially with the shaman lady, but it was nice to see what I can only describe as the only rational anarchist that I've ever seen in a documentary.
I won't be revisiting this movie documentary and I definitely wouldn't recommend this to someone that isn't aware of the realities of chan history or social internet history at large. The documentary has a tendency to believe that memes are a new concept online, starting in roughly 2013 on 4chan. This is not the case. Meme culture online goes all the way back to the early 90s and more than likely before that with the advent of chain emails and comics sent in office communication systems. This trend would expand out to funny pictures that would be categorized on sites dedicated to funny pics. This would then become an image macro where a funny pic would then be overlayed with lettering and we have the modern iteration that we have today. The documentary explicitly links the usage of KEK to ancient Egyptian mythology when in reality it is rooted in WOW as a translation of LOL from an alliance player to a horde player.
Virtually every point about internet culture and history is incorrect and the most interesting part is that there are correct ideas with the wrong terminology being used about sociology with the label of magic(k).
Definitely don't recommend if you don't know history or sociology.
The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021)
Could this be the perfect animated movie for the time?
Honestly it might be better than perfect.
The timing was far beyond anything that could be expected of a movie that came, seemingly, out of nowhere. So here's my breakdown:
The Animation:
Unbelievably good styling. I don't think I've ever seen anyone combine the 3d styling of Illumination with cell shading that reminds me of a super high res TF2. Very fluid animation, very fun articulation of the character, absolutely beautiful scenery. The emoji style bursts really rounded out the visuals.
The Story:
Fun beyond reason. Very well paced humor and every joke landed perfectly. Was the concept recycled? Sure. But lets be honest, what concept isn't?
Overall Rating: If I could give this an 11/10 I would do so without question. I don't think I've ever seen a more soulful movie and I hope we see more from this studio.
Not going to lie, I ended this movie with tears in my eyes because of how much I loved it.
Samurai Jack (2001)
The Perfectly Executed Show
I could write pages on why this show is so great; a 15 year hiatus only to come back with a 7 episode season with an ending that actually made me cry, characters that you meet once but remain in your mind as if they're regulars, the numerous and increasingly more amazing fight scenes with the main villain... Literally a reason for every episode that could be expanded upon for paragraphs, but I'll leave it as this: everything about the show, even it's imperfections, are 100% perfect.
Brad Neely's Harg Nallin' Sclopio Peepio (2016)
A Monkey Dust for Americans in the year 2016
I could only think of one appropriate way to introduce this show and that is with an homage to the introductory monologue from The Big Lebowski:
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Now this story I'm about to unfold took place back in the mid 2010s-- just about the time of our conflict with Syria and Isis . I only mention it 'cause some- times there's a show--I won't say a masterpiece, 'cause what's a masterpiece?--but sometimes there's a show.
And I'm talking' about Harg Nallin' here-- sometimes there's a show that, wal, he's the show for its time'n place, it fits right in there--and that's the Harg Nallin', on |Adult Swim|.
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Okay so like the introduction here says, this is a show that if aired at any other point in time it would probably have been out of place. This show is really a stroke of absolute genius and if you were a fan of the show Monkey Dust http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386224/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 and the dark, sardonic, ongoing sketch based humor format Harg Nallin' is going to be a show you need to see. Really it's a genius project and Brad Neely has definitely shown the right to put his name at the beginning of this. It's kind of got an oldschool Brad Neely comics kind of feel with familiar characters, voices, and scenes with brilliant background animation that both draws your attention but is utterly irrelevant to the main point each moment is trying to make.
This isn't a project for the well adjusted, this isn't for the fan of Big Bang Theory, it's not a show for people that love prime-time TV, in that same sentence it probably won't do well with Robot Chicken fans or fans of other fringe series. The people this show is going to appeal to is a small group but it's a group that's been watching Neely's shows since China, IL and all the way back to his early work where he first introduced Babyface and Steve. It's going to be a marginalized group of freaks who grew up on PeeWee's Playhouse, dark humor late night cartoons back when CC did that kind of show, or people that have ventured into other countries' entertainment to find something with which they connected if even from a third person of a third person. I'd say that the show isn't intended to be funny on it's own in it's own content, but I'd be wrong; it's a difficult humor to explain, it's just something you get or you don't.
Every once in a while there's a show that's perfect for it's time, and Harg Nallin' is that show.