History WebVideo / ConfusedMatthew

He has since returned to making videos [[https://www.twitch.tv/dandifido in the form of livestreams]], explaining that he much prefers simply sitting down and discussing his thoughts for an hour or so than having to write an in-depth review. It also gives him more freedom to talk about whatever is on his mind than being pigeon-holed into only discussing film/television. In 2022, he briefly reprised the "Confused Matthew" name for a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gbAty53xdk guest spot on a podcast]] co-hosted by his brother, to discuss the film ''Film/MrNobody''.

He announced he would stop producing videos in 2015, as he felt that most of his original work hasn't held up, as well as having many of his reviews taken down due to copyright claims. However, he announced in March 2017 that he would be returning due to popular demand, with a new format. He is open to re-reviewing the things he previously reviewed as long as no-one asks him to re-post the originals. The first of these new reviews arrived in April 2017, with his review of ''Film/BatmanVsSuperman''. However, Matthew announced about a year later on Facebook that he had quit the series for good.

** In his ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' review:

** Lampshaded when he confesses he liked (or more accurately enjoyed) the first ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' (even though he stated it still wasn't good).

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible:
** Clearly his single biggest pet peeve. Two of his three loudest angriest reviews have been about this attitude or its variations.[[invoked]]
** He's not a huge fan of things that would be covered under WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic or EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory.[[invoked]] He generally rejects the idea that a movie has any meaning other than what is obviously presented. If the movie has to be heavily analysed to grasp some meaning, then he feels that the meaning is likely just made up.

*** Later in his ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' reviews, referring to Anakin as "Woodstump", Ahsoko Tano as "Sudoku Tampon", Asajj Ventress as "Ventriloquist", and so on.

* BreadEggsMilkSquick: In the ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' review, Matt says that he never watched the ''[[WesternAnimation/TheTransformers Transformers]]'' cartoon as a kid. Instead, he grew up mostly watching ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats'', ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'', and ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePony''. He [[OpenMouthInsertFoot quickly corrects himself with the latter]] by saying ''[=TigerSharks=]''.

** In a non-film sense, he despises {{postmodernism}} and especially the works of Jean Baudrillard, as best exemplified in his ''Matrix'' sequel reviews. He considers it nothing but self-indulgent, rhetorical, useless jargon that only exists to make the person espousing it seem smart and recommends that if people are to look into philosophy at all they focus on [[Creator/{{Aristotle}} Aristotelian]] authors such as Mortimer Adler.

* SingleMindedTwins: Both Matthew and Stan consider ''Film/MoulinRogue'', ''Film/BladeRunner'', and ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'' to be among their favorite movies of all time.

* Phase 3: The comeback, between March 2017-May 2018, had a new, focused style (rather than plot run-throughs) and a lighter, more self-depricating tone.

He has since returned to making videos [[https://www.twitch.tv/danme311 in the form of livestreams]], explaining that he much prefers simply sitting down and discussing his thoughts for an hour or so than having to write an in-depth review. It also gives him more freedom to talk about whatever is on his mind than being pigeon-holed into only discussing film/television.

* '''Confused Matthew reviews''': These were originally the only type he did. Usually they consist of negative reviews of films that were well-received, and whose success [[TitleDrop confused Matthew]] because he considers them to be bad (though he also does negative reviews of movies that were poorly reviewed or outright flopped). Confused Matthew reviews usually fall into one of three categories: 'You had it right in your hands, and you lost it' (''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'', ''Film/TheDeparted''), 'This is downright terrible' (''Film/SpiderMan3'', ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII''), and 'This pissed me the fuck off' (''Star Wars'' prequels, ''Matrix'' sequels, ''Film/ManOfSteel'').

[[labelnote:Click here to see he and his brother's real faces]][[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/74698816_109776470450411_4825812660941488128_n.jpg]][[/labelnote]]]]

** 2008–2010: ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing'' was the review that got his subscription count from less than a hundred to over a thousand in a matter of hours, with a large percentage of the feedback on the review being disagreement with his stance and flames from fans of the film. In Confused Matthew's early years, no review got more attention and sparked more intense debate than this one, and even though Matthew later said he doesn't truly hate the movie and even enjoys watching it to a degree, the review couldn't help but become his signature work. In 2015, he did a re-review of the film to try to address many of the controversies while being slightly kinder to the film in hindsight.

* DevilInPlainSight: One of his biggest problems with ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing'' is how the characters trust Scar even though he's openly malevolent to nearly every character from his very first scene.

** He starts off his re-review of ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing'' with a list of things he actually liked about the film, namely the animation, the soundtrack, the strong opening, and the fact that the film defied the studio's expectations by making a lot of money despite limited marketing. He also re-assesses his opinion on some of the characters, admitting that Pumbaa is decent and that Timon was actually [[JerkassHasAPoint justified in his reluctance to save Simba from buzzards]].

** Stan is a big fan of Marvel comics and enjoys most of the [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]], in particular movies Matthew doesn't like such as ''Film/{{Thor}}'', ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', and ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy''. Matthew, on the other hand, became a big fan of DC Comics and has a deep affection for ''Film/BatmanBegins'' and ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', two movies that Stan is largely critical of.

* StrictlyFormula:[[invoked]] He criticized the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse for this in his review for ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'':

** Matthew did not care for ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' at all, but absolutely loved ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2''.

** [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars Woodstump.]] Just, [[http://www.confusedmatthew.com/Star-Wars:-The-Clone-Wars.php Woodstump.]]

** The ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'' review contains a jab at Greenpeace.

[[labelnote:Click here to see he and his brother's real faces]][[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/74698816_109776470450411_4825812660941488128_n.jpg]][[/labelnote]]]]

* BreadEggsMilkSquick: In the ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' review, Matt says that he never watched the ''WesternAnimation/{{Transformers}}'' cartoon as a kid. Instead, he grew up mostly watching ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats'', ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'', and ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePony''. He [[OpenMouthInsertFoot quickly corrects himself with the latter]] by saying ''[=TigerSharks=]''.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent:
** "Matthew's Favorite Movies", a segment devoted to speaking positively of films. He was concerned that only talking about what he disliked meant his critical position could not be fully appreciated.
** He has also begun new video series "Observe and Report", brief commentaries on strange things outside the world of cinema, and "Mini-reviews", for films which he does not consider bad or confusing but have a few things he wants to discuss. These often consist of the other films in trilogies where Matthew has made a conventional review of the remaining parts, such as ''Film/TheMatrix''.

* '''Matthew's Mixed Reviews''': These are in-depth reviews of movies, sometimes requested, that he thought were [[invoked]] [[SoOkayItsAverage decent films]] but still had issues he wanted to talk about, like the Tom Cruise version of ''Film/WarOfTheWorlds'', or were sequels to movies he had previously reviewed, such as ''Film/TwoThousandTenTheYearWeMakeContact'' or ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKingIISimbasPride'', comparing and contrasting them to the original films. Has also grown to include movies that Matthew loved but had enough significant problems to not be one of his favorite movies (''Film/IronMan3''), or movies that Matthew didn't like but had too much good stuff to ignore to be a full-on Confused Matthew review (''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'').

** After catching some heat for getting… upset about Creator/StevenSpielberg in his ''Film/MinorityReport'' review, he made a point of praising aspects of Spielberg's direction in ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds''.

* SoOkayItsAverage:[[invoked]] His opinion of several movies, including ''2010: The Year We Made Contact'' (which he nonetheless considerably prefers to its predecessor) and the Tom Cruise version of ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds''--in that case he praised the film for trying an original slant on an alien invasion film, following an ordinary family and sharing their lack of knowledge about the scale of the invasion, but added that there was a reason why it hadn't done before--it didn't make for that good a story.

He has since returned to making videos in the form of livestreams, explaining that he much prefers simply sitting down and discussing his thoughts for an hour or so than having to write an in-depth review. It also gives him more freedom to talk about whatever is on his mind than being pigeon-holed into only discussing film/television.

* {{Asexuality}}: Both he and his girlfriend have absolutely zero interest in sex, and he even once said on a livestream that watching a porno would likely give him as much pleasure as simply watching a cooking show.

** Despite his criticism of the [[invoked]]DarknessInducedAudienceApathy that ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'', he admits that that is his ''only'' problem with the film (albeit a BIG one), and that, aside from that, everything else is fine: the characters are likable (bar Syndrome), the plot is always on the move and easy to understand, there are some really funny moments, and the film, overall, isn't a bad one.

* '''Miniviews''': Similar to requested reviews, [[{{Dissimile}} except not requested]]. Matthew gives a short one-video summary of his view on a film. These are often films that are part of a wider trilogy or series whose other entries Matthew has given longer reviews of, such as the ''Matrix'' films. As Matthew has stated, these are for movies, good or bad, where he feels he doesn't have enough material to justify a longer review.

* AuthorAppeal: He has a strong interest in philosophy, being most annoyed by those films that claim to pose philosophical conundrums but he thinks don't (such as the ''Matrix'' sequels).

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy:[[invoked]] His main issue with ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'', despite this being far from a standard viewpoint of the film.

* YouKeepUsingThatWord: While he uses the term protagonist, he is frequently unsure about its use because the characters he's describing are jerks, assholes, or borderline (if not outright) villains. However, 'protagonist' simply means main character. The existence of the tropes VillainProtagonist and HeroAntagonist shows that good people and bad people are not always protagonists and antagonists respectively.

An archive of a majority of his reviews from the Blip days can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBHKqb2CBH6qMhxXoilVlpA here.]]

An archive of a majority of his review from the Blip days can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBHKqb2CBH6qMhxXoilVlpA here.]]