Entertainment Forum General Chat Thread • Page 175

I kind of tune out and leave a vid anytime I start hearing the tone of what I'm now calling "white male nerd," no matter how interesting the title was. Sorry?

Example: Cinemasins vs. Every Frame a Painting.

 

Cinemasins has always been trashwater.

 

Yeah Cinemasins is garbage and is such a shitty way of looking at movies.

 

But I mean, just the tone of narration. You gotta be inviting to your audience, not condescending and, ummm, man-splainy.

 

I find Every Frame a Painting can be quite condescending as well at times.

 

Okay... Jenny Nicholson?

 

Over the years, I tend to gravitate towards more positive film youtubers like Nerdwriter, Movies with Mikey, Film Radar, Jack's Movie Reviews.

How It Should Have Ended are critical, but they're more tongue in cheek about it. I've only watched some of Jenny Nicholson. She can be condescending imo, but usually more justifiably so and she's funnier than a lot of other reviewers.

Sort of on topic of reviews, these tweets came across my timeline yesterday.

 

Maybe I'm using the wrong words to describe it. It's not so much being positive or negative on a topic. Hasan Minhaj is good.

 

I loved his comedy special on Netflix. Haven't watched his show yet.

 

This is the video I was watching when I tuned out a minute in (it showed up in my recommendations--I'd never seen this youtuber before). He could've said the exact same words in a different way and I wouldn't have gotten bored.

 

Starting King of the Hill from the beginning thanks to Hulu

 

Going back to the discussion on tone, I started watching and really like Contrapoints, but those videos are loooong.

 

I'm curious, all you folks who watch those YouTube critics/series; how old are you? I find that I get way more out of film criticism when I read it than when I watch it, and I wonder if it's an age thing or just personal taste.

 

I'm 27, but I'm actually not too invested in film criticism in general. I mostly just go to see what's trending, or watch comedic YouTube channels I've been following for years, or watch celebrities doing dumb things or answering dumb questions on late night or Variety or Wired, etc. I kind of just stumbled upon Contrapoints and Jenny Nicholson through recs YT gives me.

 

24. I prefer video if what is being discussed is strictly visual. If it's a review then I prefer reading it but if it's like, an assessment or a breakdown then having a video helps.

 

Side note guys: Burning is one of the best films of the 21st century, and you should all see it. I've watched it four times in the last three days and all I want to do right now is watch it again.

 

I'm so glad Steven Yuen escaped the Walking Dead

 

Speak of the devil

Exclusive: Steven Yeun to Star in Episode of Jordan Peele's 'The Twilight Zone'

 

I'm 30 and can't do video at all I only read print criticism

 

Also this is somewhat old news but I never saw it before and it definitely relates to the discussion of YouTube criticism, plus Columbus was my favorite film of 2017:

Theresa Park’s Pow! Developing Alexander Weinstein Short Story ‘Saying Goodbye To Yang’ For Big Screen

 

Film criticism has a lot of advantages in video form. It is, after all, a visual medium. Just telling someone that a film has great cinematography is never going to be as effective as showing a sample of it.

However, due to the expense of video production (even a YouTube video takes time and a certain level of equipment), and the evaporation of paying film criticism work, and the general advanced age of good critics, print and written work tends to shine. A lot of the most famous YouTube "critics" (Chris Stuckmann, Nostalgia Critic, and so on) don't really know much about film and talk in very surface levels about the movies they watch. Inevitably someone will throw the word elitist around, but you need a foundation of classic films before you can be taken seriously as a critic. That is not the same as saying they cannot have an opinion or their opinion is wrong, but it is going to have roughly the same value as a friend or co-worker.

However, there is strong criticism in video form. RedLetterMedia rarely reviews films that I actually watch, but I will watch their half-hour review of something because they apply their knowledge of filmmaking on a technical level and their deep reservoir of b-movie knowledge. A.O. Scott made some great short clips for a video series highlighting important films. What the Flick was a nice experiment, although they failed to make use of the video format in an interesting way.

 

I don't know if it's a recent development or I've just been reading better critics, but I feel like lately film criticism has become less "this movie is good/this movie is bad" and more about finding the nuance, i.e. "this is a good movie, here's some things I didn't like about it" and vice versa. Which I really enjoy.

 

I only know him for Mayhem and Sorry To Bother You, which are good movies

 

He's incredible in Burning. Really good in Okja too.