Space Marines And Love Story

January 31, 2010 6:43 PM

Remember the guy who did a massive 7 part review of Phantom Menace? Well he's done Avatar now (1, 2). (NSFW, but there's less serial killer jokes)
posted by fearfulsymmetry (76 comments total)

GOOGLE FLUX TRAPPING.
posted by Artw at 6:59 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

"the comically large knife"

I remember being in the theater full of people while that scene was being played out. Everyone holding their breath, silent, eyes locked on the screen behind those glasses. Epic battle, "man" vs. machine, giant robot whacking the shit out of everything and the marine jumping around like yoda. And then the knife comes out. And I hear someone yell "WHAT?!"
posted by bam at 7:09 PM on January 31, 2010 [7 favorites]

The critical complaints about the Noble Savage story in Avatar ceased being any more original than the plot a long time ago.
posted by Cyrano at 7:16 PM on January 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

It seems like he read a lot of threads on the internet that were critical of the movie, then condensed them into a 17 minute review.
posted by Burhanistan at 7:17 PM on January 31, 2010

It seems like he read a lot of threads on the internet that were critical of the movie everything, then condensed them into a 17 minute review life.

ftfy
posted by turgid dahlia at 7:20 PM on January 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm trying real hard to skip this movie. I recall when the trailer came out and people drooled all over. I was like, this plot looks stupid.

It doesn't look like I'm wrong.
posted by MrLint at 7:20 PM on January 31, 2010

"Turn that asshole off!" was the first thing I heard from the other room, seconds after clicking the link. I still want the 70 minutes back I wasted on his Phantom Menace thing.
posted by muckster at 7:27 PM on January 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

Those who think the box office success of 70s shit like Star Wars fucked royally with the quality of movies for the last quarter century are in for some awesome entertainment in the next quarter century.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 7:30 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Saw it. Shelled out an extra four bux per ticket, as it's in threeeee-deeeee. So, right off the bat, it's BO record is artificially inflated.

And yes, this movie is both one dimensional, derivative, and derogatory towards hunter-gatherer cultures. Whining that the complaint is old and unoriginal doesn't make it any less true. The characters are clumsily carved from cheap lumber, the villains inhuman mustache-twirlers, there wasn't a single surprise or meaningful reversal of fortune anywhere.

It did look amazing, though. As we learned from Transformers 2, you don't need a plot or compelling characters or even scripted dialogue to sell out a theater for two months solid.

Star Trek's sequel did save the franchise as a viable cultural artifact, tho, so maybe the Avatar sequel will do the same.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:35 PM on January 31, 2010 [3 favorites]

RedLetterMedia guy, if you see this please don't think I'm being condescending or backhanded: your analyses are dead-on, insightful, and thought-provoking. Watching your videos have made me reconsider not just the movies under review but the entire storytelling process. Your reviews stay with me, getting me to think about genre conventions and narrative elements in an entirely new way.

But please stop trying to be funny.

Because--and I know this is hard to hear--you're just not actually very funny. You're smart and perceptive, but your attempts at humor fall flat. At the very best, they come off as tired "edgy" 90s comedy. At worst they detract from the true purpose of your videos and keep out people who might otherwise really enjoy watching them.

Again, I don't mean this in a cruel way, though I know it's hard to hear: this is just my own personal opinion, but it seems that those of us who came of age after the late 60s seem to honor a certain kind of "funniness" much higher than earlier eras. The side effect is that those of us who aren't funny have to rely on easy "joke-like products" that look like jokes and act like jokes, but just...aren't that funny. Your serial killer schtick is a great example of that.

You can find more examples on this very site. Here we mark J-LPs with a special tag that reads "Has Favorites."

Mad respect for what you do and what you've already accomplished. Please understand that I'm only writing this because I want to whole-heartedly recommend your reviews to people whom I think would genuinely appreciate what you're trying to say. I don't want to keep promoting your work while warning my friends to skip or ignore entire sections of the reviews.
posted by Ian A.T. at 7:41 PM on January 31, 2010 [13 favorites]

Nah, his humor’s brilliant. You might need the right kind of B-cult-movie sensibility to be tuned in to his frequency though.
posted by thelastenglishmajor at 7:57 PM on January 31, 2010 [7 favorites]

I was thinking of posting this, but honestly it's just a bit of low-effort filler between his fantastic Phantom Menace review and his next review of Ep. 2. It's not terrible, but it's not stellar.

Also yeah, drop a comment on his webzone about the serial killer shtick; it's the only reason why I haven't shared it with my family and I would love it if his next review dropped it.
posted by flatluigi at 7:58 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Nope. Still not worth sitting through that voice.
posted by WhackyparseThis at 7:59 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

those of us who came of age after the late 60s seem to honor a certain kind of "funniness" much higher than earlier eras.

Is that supposed to be funny?
posted by stbalbach at 8:02 PM on January 31, 2010

but it seems that those of us who came of age after the late 60s seem to honor a certain kind of "funniness" much higher than earlier eras.

By "funniness," I presume that you refer to that detestable twee that takes no chances, pulls its punches, confirms your vapid convictions, and that marinates itself in barbs safer than Leno which you can forward onto your bumbling buddies at work without fear of the message being intercepted by a humorless HR manager who will fire your ass at the "threat" of an iconoclastic YouTube dude smiling with a knife.

I think the dude's a fucking riot and his lowbrow jocular asides give the asphyxiating climate of airless cultural criticism a much needed kick in the ass. That you seem to have missed out on the conceit of his character -- that hard truths about the shit that Hollywood presently sugarcoats as art and/or entertainment can only be delivered by some sociopath relegated to a basement -- says more about your failure to ken Red Letter's valuable contributions. Frankly, the world needs more Red Letter Media dudes and Bill Hicks types to combat the kind of conformist drivel that you effortlessly spew with your sentiments.
posted by ed at 8:05 PM on January 31, 2010 [19 favorites]

I just finally saw Avatar for the first time today. It was fucking **INCREDIBLE**. Fuck any and all haters.
posted by Perplexity at 8:10 PM on January 31, 2010 [6 favorites]

Not as tight as the Phantom Menace review, but the guy proves he knows his shit about movies. I might have found my new favorite comprehensive movie reviewer — willing to acknowledge the good things, but spot-on and detailed about the bad.

The humor's mixed — I'm a highbrow douche, though, so I think that about a lot of things — but when he was mentioning Cameron's cliche of "making love in a unique location" and the clip showed an outhouse on Pandora, I laughed.

I also really enjoyed the discussion about how the characters were created. A few points I hadn't read before. It's nice to have somebody else beanplate something so I can sit back and not exert myself.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:11 PM on January 31, 2010

"Fewer", but thanks for this.

Heh. I fear this is the way English is evolving with the number of people using 'less' for countable nouns these days, but I admit to seeing a red mist every time I hear it, too. Ah well, with any luck I'll be dead from a grammar-apoplexy-induced aneurism before it takes over completely.

I'm not gonna watch this one until I actually see the movie in question, but I very much enjoyed some of this guy's other recent stuff (he gets better at the schtick as time goes on).
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:23 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm still bitter about the Firekind post, because for once I could honetsly say "I know more about this subject that you can possibly imagine"... and then the fucker got deleted before I'd even begun boring the hell out of everybody about early-90s 2000ad and the comics career of John Smith.
posted by Artw at 8:27 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ed, it was an opinion. Try disagreeing without resorting to ad hominem attacks, eh? Chill out.
posted by Phire at 8:29 PM on January 31, 2010

Is it just me, or was Avatar basically a tech demo? Like Doom 3 is about selling id's engine to other developers.
posted by Decimask at 8:30 PM on January 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

the world needs more Red Letter Media dudes and Bill Hicks types to combat the kind of conformist drivel that you effortlessly spew with your sentiments.

Well I walked by a school the other day, and it looked like there are still plenty of fifteen-year-olds.
posted by drjimmy11 at 8:31 PM on January 31, 2010 [8 favorites]

Because--and I know this is hard to hear--you're just not actually very funny. You're smart and perceptive, but your attempts at humor fall flat. At the very best, they come off as tired "edgy" 90s comedy. At worst they detract from the true purpose of your videos and keep out people who might otherwise really enjoy watching them.

I'm holding off on watching the Avatar ones, but maaaaan, you are so wrong about dude not being funny.
posted by 23skidoo at 8:31 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is it just me, or was Avatar basically a tech demo?

Well, yeah, it's value is in the effects not the story, for sure.

But the script isn't really *that* bad, by today's standards. It was trite and unimaginative for sure, but it got the job done. As a piece of writing, I'd put it above the new "Star Trek," "Iron Man," or either "Transformers" movie.
posted by drjimmy11 at 8:33 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

you are so wrong about dude not being funny.

I think he meant funny on purpose.
posted by drjimmy11 at 8:33 PM on January 31, 2010

The guy is funny except when he goes with the serial killer shtick. Then he's just creepy.
posted by effugas at 8:35 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

By "funniness," I presume that you refer to that detestable twee that takes no chances, pulls its punches, confirms your vapid convictions, and that marinates itself in barbs safer than Leno...

Wait. I guess I wasn't clear as I could have been because it actually sounds like you're agreeing with me...? My point was that this pressure to be funny leads a lot of people who aren't naturally quick or witty to resort to the same kind of readymade humor you rail against in your post.

And hey, humor is subjective, right? You think his serial killer bit is great...I find it tired and obvious. So be it. I will disagree with you on one point, though:

the world needs more [...] Bill Hicks types

The world needs more Bill Hicks; it needs a whole hell of a lot less Bill Hicks types.
posted by Ian A.T. at 8:36 PM on January 31, 2010

YOUR FAVORITE YOOTOOB MOVIE CRITIC COMES OFF AS UNFUNNY AND SOMEWHAT ANNOYING
posted by Throw away your common sense and get an afro! at 8:40 PM on January 31, 2010

Star Trek's sequel did save the franchise as a viable cultural artifact

Star Trek wasn't a viable cultural artifact before Abram's sequel? Wrongity wrong wrong wrong.

By "funniness," I presume that you refer to that detestable twee that takes no chances, pulls its punches, confirms your vapid convictions, and that marinates itself in barbs safer than Leno which you can forward onto your bumbling buddies at work without fear of the message being intercepted by a humorless HR manager who will fire your ass at the "threat" of an iconoclastic YouTube dude smiling with a knife

Umm, I think he was saying that the dude's serial killer shtick was trite and not funny, not offensive and in poor taste.
posted by Think_Long at 8:48 PM on January 31, 2010

the conceit of his character -- that hard truths about the shit that Hollywood presently sugarcoats as art and/or entertainment can only be delivered by some sociopath relegated to a basement

Yeah, we get it -- but it's not such a fresh conceit, and it's not really true either, is it? Manohla Dargis can say it in her own voice just fine.
posted by muckster at 8:48 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

you are so wrong about dude not being funny.

I think he meant funny on purpose.

ZING! ohmanyougotme

Clearly, you know quite a bit about humor.
posted by 23skidoo at 8:49 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

You know what makes me want to stab people with giant sized knives? The extent to which people have started refering to any and all random objections to a movie as plot holes.
posted by Artw at 8:50 PM on January 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

Seeing the boiling hatred Red Letter's schtick inspires pleases me - I distrust anyone pandering toward the middle. I do find myself on the "Get out of my popcorn bucket! == funny" side of the divide, tho.

The biggest complaint seems to be that he's not taking this seriously enough, or somehow infecting or lessening his act with his humor. In case you ain't figured it out yet, the dude's doing it to entertain himself, not audition for Roger Ebert's understudy. He finds retired serial killers entertaining, and he finds analyzing pop-culture films for a non-technical, non-academic audience entertaining. I'm on-board, and it's fun. I even like the voice, it reminds me of Odd Todd.

Maybe you're one of those people who don't find Odd Todd funny, in which case, GET OUT OF MY POPCORN BUCKET!
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:52 PM on January 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

effugas: "The guy is funny except when he goes with the serial killer shtick. Then he's just creepy."

You did notice how he groaned at the end about the Avatar 2? How many serial movies are made each year as cash cows? The dude is out to kill unoriginal boring art. Get it? Serial Killer. It's part of his shtick, he should stick with it, until the message sticks.
posted by stbalbach at 8:53 PM on January 31, 2010

Thanks for that link, muckster; it's a great little interview and wonderful to hear Dargis laying it on the line.
posted by mediareport at 8:57 PM on January 31, 2010

You did notice how he groaned at the end about the Avatar 2? How many serial movies are made each year as cash cows? The dude is out to kill unoriginal boring art. Get it? Serial Killer. It's part of his shtick, he should stick with it, until the message sticks.

You're overthinking it.
posted by flatluigi at 9:03 PM on January 31, 2010 [3 favorites]

The Firekind post was deleted? Well I'm just going to have to repost a short version of what I think the sequel is going be like:

Avatar 2: The Magnetic Flux Boogaloo

The next one is going to be The Empire Humans Strike Back. Except he's going to rip off Heinlein and make The Moon (Pandora) Is A Harsh Mistress. Everything is in place already, including Earth insisting on mining a precious substance (from the moon), and the planet wide sentient god-supercomputer. I would lay down even money the ending is the same as the book, and !!SUSPENSE!! they lose their connection to Gaia *cough* I mean Eywa. I'm thinking a bit of a twisteroonie to hold us over until the other sequel is we find out !SURPRISE! Jake's brother is alive!

The third one has the Ewoks dancing.
posted by P.o.B. at 9:06 PM on January 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

Star Trek wasn't a viable cultural artifact before Abram's sequel?

Abram's sequel...? Abram's sequel? Abram's sequel?

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:07 PM on January 31, 2010 [4 favorites]

The answerphone bit was funny, but I have to admit that I got bored and lost interest after that - they guy is no Charlie Brooker. Is the Star Wars one better?
posted by Artw at 9:08 PM on January 31, 2010

I guess this is as good a place as any to get it off my chest: I can't stand Bill Hicks. There're a few clips of his that I don't mind, but by and large the guy is vulgar and repetitive and not particularly clever and just mean. I mean, I love skepticism and faithlessness and offensiveness as much as the next skeptical faithless offensive guy, but whenever I hear Hicks it comes across not as insightful or clever but as incredibly angry and juvenile.

Are there clips of his that I'm missing that people find particularly brilliant that click him for you? The one I keep getting told about is the "if you're in marketing, kill yourself" routine, but it's the prime example of Bill Hicks kind of repeating himself and being an enormous hypocrite. The guy constructs a fictional marketer and gets unbelievably pissed off at him, and so people quote him and smugly pat themselves on the backs, but the guy's doing exactly what he claims to hate in that routine — repeats a simplistic narrative enough times that it sticks in somebody's brain, and in doing so appeals to the cynical antimarketing crowd. The guy was a comedian. He knew how to sell himself. Then he goes and rants about how he hates people selling themselves and does it in a way that marketed itself to everybody who thinks it's fun to hate on marketers.

Possibly it's that he constantly fires off "cocksucker"s and "suck Satan's cock"s to a point where it really sounds homophobic and hateful. Something about a comedian using a gay slur to tell his jokes strikes me as lazy. But I also hate the clip of him telling the heckler that people like Hitler had it right. I feel about it like I feel about the Michael Richards "nigger" clip. It's such an empty and void and hateful spitout that I can't find it humorous. I feel more sad for the guy than anybody.

I hear him mentioned constantly as Carlin's contemporary, but Carlin always had such a wry, loving manner about him. Even when he was calling the human race animals, at his lowest point, there was a certain delight in the words he picked and his pauses and even the way he expressed his anger. There were things fucked up in the world, yeah, but Carlin found the humor in it and he spoke in an almost resigned way, and it always seemed that he loved the things he loved more than he hated the things he hated.

So, any huge Bill Hicks fans got an insight to provide? I'd rather love the guy than hate him, but he's one of those things, along with Bright Eyes and Joss Whedon shows, that I can't find enough redeeming value in to really accept, and I'm always open to somebody with an extra half hour to burn who's willing to, I dunno, talk me through the guy and tell me things that'll make me smack my head and never find the guy humorless again. Insights into Bright Eyes and Joss Whedon are also welcome.
posted by Rory Marinich at 9:12 PM on January 31, 2010 [17 favorites]

Is the Star Wars one better?

Well funnier or a better breakdown/takedown of the movie? I can't really answer the funny question because I thought some of it was funny but the "I kill women in my basement" bit was a little bit too much. He does a much better job of taking apart the Phantom Menace though, and I think it's worth it for that.
posted by P.o.B. at 9:18 PM on January 31, 2010

I kind of wish Red Letter would get rid of the serial killer schtick, but the voice works well and helps the reviews remain grounded and unpretentious.

Red Letter's real genius is his ability to juxtapose and mash up different bits of pop cultural detritus to make a point - the Garbage Pail Kids song in the Avatar review is (once again) genius.

The funniest review I have seen so far of Avatar has to be Avatar - the Metacontextual Edition. Just brilliant.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:23 PM on January 31, 2010 [5 favorites]

So, any huge Bill Hicks fans got an insight to provide?

Yeah, watch Revelation in it's entirety.
posted by empath at 9:47 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

I like this guy's reviews, couldn't get through this one, though. I don't think he actually dislikes this movie enough to be interesting about it.
posted by empath at 9:48 PM on January 31, 2010

-How hot Na'vi seks should have been.

-Really dig his movie analysis, very much down on the casual misogyny. Maybe I'm just one those guys with a wife and a sister who just don't find that funny. And there are other ways to be clever. I think he's alienating a large segment of his audience needlessly.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:09 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

OK, when he sings the Folger's jingle to "The best part of waking up / Is acid in your cuuuup!" while a distorted coffee cup floats across the screen…I lol-ed a little bit. I'm not proud of it.
posted by LMGM at 10:19 PM on January 31, 2010

Is it just me, or was Avatar basically a tech demo?

I've worked in a similar pipeline to the Avatar performance capture one, on a much smaller budget, for television work.

Those systems do impressive work-- when they are overseen and operated at all times by professionals who have worked with them very, very intimately for long periods of R&D time. Most of the time, even when they're being used on real productions, they are still beta setups with all the hardware and software adventures that entails.

Cameron's not going to be selling a preconfigured, ready-to-roll, all-possible-bases-covered virtual stage system to anyone just yet. Give him two more movies to box it up and tuck away the sparking ends first.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 10:28 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Awesome! I love this guy. The part in the Star Wars review where he goes in the basement to show off his action figures and you see a tied-up, sobbing hooker just in the corner of the frame, who he tells to "SHUT UP! I'm makin' my Star Wars review!", was one of the weirdest and funniest things I've ever seen in an Internet video.
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:01 PM on January 31, 2010

Wow, I must have missed that earlier thread: you guys really HATED the hooker-killing joke. Okay, I don't need to have popular opinions.
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:14 PM on January 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is the Star Wars one better?

Yes. I liked this one, but I would've liked more movie take-down and less other schtick. I've watched the Phantom Menace review in its entirety an embarrassing number of times, because it's both funny and goddamn satisfying. As someone mentioned on the previous thread, it's a 70-minute Phantom Menace review that mentions Jar-Jar Binks maybe twice, and then only in passing, because it recognizes that the movie's real flaws are much deeper and more systemic. By the end of the review, he's talking unironically about the emotional undercurrents that motivated the original light-sabre battles and comparing them to the flashy, antiseptic ones of the prequels, and it stops being funny and just becomes damn good criticism.

But it's also funny. I know some people don't like the voice he puts on, but the gruff, sad way he says "Oh..." when something stupid happens gets me every time.
posted by brookedel at 11:29 PM on January 31, 2010 [6 favorites]

I find his voice soothing. Does he do audio books?
posted by Ritchie at 11:29 PM on January 31, 2010

You know ... I honestly don't care if the guy's style and schtick is somewhat offputting. His contrasting analyses of both characterization and, oddly enough, emotional expression during lightsaber battles, as portrayed in first Star Wars trilogy as opposed to Episode 1, are so spot on and insightful that I would be impressed with them if he wrote them on sulfuric acid and poured them down my throat. Those sections of his Episode I review should be required viewing in film school.

Looking forward to seeing what he has to say about Avatar.
posted by kyrademon at 12:56 AM on February 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

You did notice how he groaned at the end about the Avatar 2? How many serial movies are made each year as cash cows? The dude is out to kill unoriginal boring art. Get it? Serial Killer. It's part of his shtick, he should stick with it, until the message sticks.

The bigger problem with it, even if it wasn't creepy, is that it's a total one trick pony. Like, it was shocking the first time, but by the thirtieth time, you're just like...oh, heh, there he goes again with the "*GASP* OH MY GOD I'M A MURDERER" thing. Like, eventually you expect the film criticism part of his act to eat the crazy psycho murderer part, because it's just Jar Jar Killsalot.
posted by effugas at 3:26 AM on February 1, 2010

Bleh, you know what? Avatar was awesome. Yeah the plot was a little played out, I guess. I suppose if you're a ubernerd who has a lot of exposure to these tropes it might seem derivative. But for someone like me, and I think, the vast majority of people the movie was actually pretty fresh and novel. The film made all of those elements believable.

And Cameron did a great job of telling a story through broad strokes because he didn't want to waste too much time on the human side, choosing instead to focus on the visuals and the Na'vi side of the story.

Also, someone mentioned metacontextual review. It was funny, but how they kept saying "they could have done this to increase the tension, they could have done that to increase the tension" etc. Well, all the things they recommended were clichés that someone else (probably them) would have criticized if they'd been in the film.

"The movie could have been different then it was" is not a valid criticism.

I guess this is as good a place as any to get it off my chest: I can't stand Bill Hicks. There're a few clips of his that I don't mind, but by and large the guy is vulgar and repetitive and not particularly clever and just mean.

You have the worst taste in the world :P

The funniest review I have seen so far of Avatar has to be Avatar - the Metacontextual Edition. Just brilliant.

So I somehow read that as "Avatar – the Metrosexual edition" and I'm like "What"? Even weirder was that it showed up as a visited link :P

But yeah as I mentioned earlier, most of the "review" consists of talking about how the movie could have been different. Of course, as I said, a lot of the recommendations were clichés. And simply making the movie different without making it better (and making it longer to boot)
posted by delmoi at 4:42 AM on February 1, 2010

The serial killer thing is funny on a number of levels.

1) Only some completely sick fuck like a serial killer would obsess to that level over Star Trek.
2) It is bizarre, almost dada, that some super old guy would care at all about Star Trek.
3) Bizarre that this guy who lives like some hermit has grandchildren playing and leaving toys down in the basement.
4) Even some complete nutter serial killer can see the idiotic holes in these films.

That's just for starters. New people come wired too tight, and grumble grumble grumble lawn etc etc.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:48 AM on February 1, 2010

I could not, could not get past the affected weirdo voice when this guy's Episode 1 series hit the big time. The comments in this thread about his actual insight into storytelling compelled me to go back and give it a try.

dammit, all you jerks were right. this is really good stuff.
posted by unregistered_animagus at 5:41 AM on February 1, 2010

1) Only some completely sick fuck like a serial killer would obsess to that level over Star Trek.
2) It is bizarre, almost dada, that some super old guy would care at all about Star Trek.
3) Bizarre that this guy who lives like some hermit has grandchildren playing and leaving toys down in the basement.
4) Even some complete nutter serial killer can see the idiotic holes in these films.

This. While I didn't think the serial killer thing was executed perfectly, I got the concept from the first line of the Star Wars review, as he's talking about his son killing himself in, what was it, a gas station restroom? You think: Jesus, what a pathetic fucker. But you've been gearing yourself up for a 70-minute review of a ten-year-old movie, so: What else did you expect? Unlike some people who hated the voice, I loved it and thought it was the thing that held everything together.

Even that basement scene that was so overdone, where we don't just see the woman but hear her speak, the line where he says "Shut up, I'm making my Youtube Star Wars review" almost redeemed the entire thing. That was a laugh-out-loud line for me. Because he says it so matter-of-factly, so sincerely, to this woman in the basement, like it makes perfect sense that after locking her away and doing God knows what to her, he would create this epic unbelievable Star Wars review for an old movie. It made me reflect upon every Youtube comment I'd ever seen, and upon the fact that the most disturbing comments aren't the short trollish dumb ones, but the lengthy overintellectual ones left by people who are seemingly bright but apparently have no better place to go than Youtube in the evening.

You have the worst taste in the world :P

Oh, boo you.
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:05 AM on February 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

Meatbomb, he would totally kill you for mixing up Star Trek and Star Wars.
posted by Pendragon at 8:09 AM on February 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Insights into Bright Eyes and Joss Whedon are also welcome.

THE 'YELLOW BIRD' IS THE HARBINGER OF MORNING AND THUS THE AGENT OF THE NARRATOR'S AWAKENING. THE 'REAVERS' AND THE 'ALLIANCE' ARE THE EXTREMES OF CHAOS AND CIVILIZATION THAT BOOKEND THE FRONTIER MOTIF.

MEFI MAIL ME IF YOU WANT A PIZZA ROLL.
posted by kid ichorous at 9:55 AM on February 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

You know what to do.
posted by Cathedral at 9:58 AM on February 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

And Cameron did a great job of telling a story through broad strokes because he didn't want to waste too much time on the human side, choosing instead to focus on the visuals and the Na'vi side of the story.

The Na'vi were human... I've met fellow Americans from more alien cultures (Hey, Nawlins, where ya at?). They're just one-dimensional, interchangeable, and picked up on discount from The Education of Little Tree.



Name four Na'vi characters without googling them, OK go!

Name the four most important Star Wars characters without having to pause to narrow down a list, OK go!

Hell, I could name more Hong Kong Cavaliers off the top of my head than I could Avatar characters.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:34 AM on February 1, 2010

To be fair, I've only seen Avatar once. Star Wars is ritual, so it doesn't mean very much that I can name legions of characters. I've also seen Billy Madison dozens of times, and can name all of those characters - that doesn't mean it's a good movie.
posted by Think_Long at 11:05 AM on February 1, 2010

Colonel Nutcase is clearly the best character in Avatar.
posted by Artw at 11:08 AM on February 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

I guess this is as good a place as any to get it off my chest: I can't stand Bill Hicks. There're a few clips of his that I don't mind, but by and large the guy is vulgar and repetitive and not particularly clever and just mean.

What's wrong with your TASTE?
posted by panboi at 11:15 AM on February 1, 2010 [5 favorites]

Hey everyone. I just wanted to jump on the bandwagon here and express my scorn for Avatar too. First of all, I have to say that this idea the film had where people travel to another world that is inhabited by otherworldly creatures has been done before, a lot. I feel this has already received thorough treatment in modern cinema and that films can no longer benefit from this tired cliché. Second, the special effects in this film were too realistic. The effects would have served viewers better had they been done exclusively with claymation, as any plot that doesn't have the same power when shown with claymation is truly inferior. This brings me to my third and final point: that this film's budget was unconscionable considering that $500 million is half way to $1 billion and $1 billion is a lot of dollars. This is money that has been potentially siphoned from more noble corporate expenditures such as Super Bowl ads and maintaining my belief that Coke tastes better than Pepsi.
posted by worpet at 11:18 AM on February 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Glasses $3-......shrooms priceless.
posted by haikuku at 12:48 PM on February 1, 2010

Yeah, watch Revelation in it's entirety.

Tried. It was my third attempt to get into Bill Hicks. I guess it just might be that we see Hicks’s influence everywhere among comics of his generation, so that it’s harder to appreciate him now.

The Phantom Menace Guy’s use of “Garbage Pail Kids” footage is amazing.
posted by thelastenglishmajor at 1:07 PM on February 1, 2010

Hell, I could name more Hong Kong Cavaliers off the top of my head than I could Avatar characters.

Let me try...

- Buckaroo.
- Perfect Tommy.
- Pecos something?
posted by thelastenglishmajor at 1:08 PM on February 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

New Jersey
Rawhide
Reno
Pinky Carruthers
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 1:23 PM on February 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Pinky Carruthers

Sorry, he was a Blue Blaze Irregular.
posted by lekvar at 2:07 PM on February 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Eh. I loved the Star Wars review enough to make a FPP about it, but something about this doesn't sit quite as right. Part of this is just the nature of the material: Avatar is, at worst, mediocre, not terrible, which makes for less hi-larious reviewing. But I find the "comedic" elements more intrusive here. The second appearance of the serial killer dungeon? Just tiresome, and I found it pretty funny the first time around. This guy could feasibly write some great reviews, but I suspect he suspects he wouldn't get as much of an audience for straight reviewing or something.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 2:23 PM on February 1, 2010

Personally I'd be more interested in knowing if anyone has put their finger on why precisely Avatar is such a haters Rorschach test.
posted by Artw at 2:32 PM on February 1, 2010

Pinky Carruthers

Sorry, he was a Blue Blaze Irregular.

Technicality. :P

And I do seem to remember him playing bass in a band called "Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers".

But you're right, I forgot about his "Need see Buck'roo Banzai" scene.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 2:48 PM on February 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Personally I'd be more interested in knowing if anyone has put their finger on why precisely Avatar is such a haters Rorschach test.

Yeah, I was hoping for a bit more critical analysis like he did with the Phantom review. I think it has something to do with the huge disparity between "Wow, that was medicre and cliche'." and "Wowee Zoweee! That was the best movie ever!" That disparity is going to be prominent because it's so much fun for people to hate on stuff other people like.
posted by P.o.B. at 3:26 PM on February 1, 2010

Thank you so much for introducing me to that Phantom Menace review. That was excellent.
posted by stinkycheese at 6:52 PM on February 1, 2010

Personally I'd be more interested in knowing if anyone has put their finger on why precisely Avatar is such a haters Rorschach test.

It's because we're told Avatar is the greatest thing since Titanic, it's because Avatar cost at least $500M to make, it's because Avatar is going to be nominated for an Oscar, it's because Avatar will influence movies for decades to come, and on top of all that it's because Avatar treats its audience like we're dolts. The plot is stolen, lazy, full of holes.

What's not to hate?

Personally, I enjoyed watching it, and was able to suspend my disbelief, but I have pretty low expectations of Hollywood movies.
posted by KokuRyu at 1:21 PM on February 2, 2010 [1 favorite]